Grasping at straws, but still loyal to Gordon, Damian McBride told the assembled Beeboids in White City earlier today that he thought Labour could hold on to enough seats to secure a hung parliament.  Paul Waugh and Ben Brogan have done follow-ups – Ben was actually there.

Damian slagged off Blair, claiming that during the mad cow crisis Gordon was sat with the Chief Veterinary Officer counting cows whilst Blair was only vaguely interested.  Some might think that Blair looking at the big picture rather than getting bogged down in micro-managing details was sensible for a Prime Minister.

Asked about the possible effect of “citizen journalism” on the general election, Damian said he thought the ubiquity of camera phones might cost a candidate dearly.  There was much smirking when Laura Kuenssberg cuttingly interjected that Damian himself “had an incident with new technology”.  Guido remembers her rottweiler-like pursuit of Damian during the opening weekend of Smeargate.

Do you think Damian is missing being in the game?

UPDATE : Danny Finkelstein is calling Paul Waugh on his somewhat, how shall we put it, well “spun” version of events – Waugh wasn’t there – Danny is implying that Waugh’s “BBC insider” source is not truthfully reporting events. Fancy that. A while back Paul Waugh was the only hack to report information that could only have come from Nadine Dorries, her lawyers, Guido or McPoison. When Guido teased him that he must have Damian’s new number, Waugh denied it.  Clearly Damian still has his number…