There’s a gentle slap for Tom Watson in McBride’s book. Discussing the 2007 Ealing by-election which was turned into a total cluster for the Tories after it was revealed their candidate Tony Lit was photographed with Tony Blair and gave a donation to the party, McBride explains how he got the story out there:

“I managed to get that photo onto almost every broadsheet front page and on page 2 of every tabloid. That said, given later events, it’s interesting to note that Tom and I almost fell out over the distribution of the photo, since he thought it should be an exclusive for the News of the World.”

He keeps quiet about his close relationship with the newspaper’s political editor these days…