"Damian McBride is NOT being expelled from Labour"

Paul Waugh reports that:

"Gordon's former Downing Street aide and spinner Damian McBride is NOT being expelled from the Labour Party.

I can reveal that the party's National Executive Committee (NEC) discussed his membership during its long meeting yesterday. McBride's "smeargate" emails attempted to spread stories about the private lives of several senior Tories including David Cameron and he was sacked as a result.

His local CLP in Finchley has decided not to take any action, despite grumbling from MP Rudi Vis, and the NEC decided that the matter should rest there, my source tells me. "The NEC are going to leave it at that," I'm told.

Vis said last month that McBride’s actions had been scandalous and he had been disgusted by it. "He has damaged the Labour party and I do not think we have even heard the whole story of what he planned to do. A person who damages the Labour government should not be party to that party he has damaged."

But Andrew McNeil, Finchley branch chairman, says there are no plans to discuss any individual’s membership. Suggestions that there would be an executive meeting and then a general committee meeting locally to discuss it are inaccurate, he is telling friends."

Sleaze at the heart of the Labour Party?