' The real villain of the period was not McBride. He was just the vicious little monkey. The organ grinder was Gordon Brown, the man who prated about his "moral compass" while allowing his smear merchant to trash the characters of colleagues. In the end, the reputation it most fouled was his own. Which is a sort of justice.'

I wish I could write as well as Andrew Rawnsley.

'It was Brown who created and presided over the brutish, treacherous, gangland culture in which his hitman operated. Even McBride laughs at his former capo's "comically irrational outbursts" and propensity to "unleash a tremendous volley of abuse, usually just a stream of unconnected swear words". Then there is Brown's default response to things going wrong – which is to blame someone else. "Blair!", roars Brown about a self-inflicted blunder. "Blair made me give him the figures. Why has he done this to me?"

The real villain of the period was not McBride. He was just the vicious little monkey. The organ grinder was Gordon Brown, the man who prated about his "moral compass" while allowing his smear merchant to trash the characters of colleagues. In the end, the reputation it most fouled was his own.

Which is a sort of justice.'

More here http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/26/power-trip-damian-mcbride-review?CMP=twt_gu