At Foreign Office Questions this afternoon, Damian McBride Emily Thornberry took the opportunity to sting Boris by congratulating Jeremy Hunt for “not just for getting into the final two, but also being the only candidate who has the police outside his house for the right reasons!” Ouch…

Last night: @DPMcBride, @EmilyThornberry and @SeumasMilne having dinner together at Browns in Covent Garden.

— Eye Spy MP (@eyespymp) February 10, 2016

This tweet from EyeSpy suddenly makes a lot more sense – Damian McBride has been hired to be Emily Thornberry’s spin doctor. On the day of her resignation, McBride told the BBC she should’ve lied about the meaning of her flag tweet. News of the move was slipped out at 5:50pm on Friday night, the old tricks are the best…

It appears our old friend Damian McBride couldn’t resist sticking the knife in to Ed Miliband’s shambolic media operation. McBride was happy to recount the following anecdote about a grim-faced Tom Baldwin, the ex-Times hack who became Ed’s press guru.

“Tom Baldwin was in a very dark mood at a party one night. I told him ‘Tom, what have you got coming up, what are you looking forward to?’ And he just stared at his shoes for 15 seconds. And then he walked out to have a cigarette as though I’d deliberately tried to say something to offend him. I just thought he’s clearly got no good answer to that question. If you’ve got no good answer to that, if you’ve got no plan to turn it around, you can’t survive in this. When Gordon got himself deep into that territory I always kept him out of the hole by saying, ‘the next speech will turn it around’ or ‘I’ve got this great stuff we can leak about the Tories. Ed Miliband got himself into a place where just to get himself some good press he’d just deal with the Guardian and Observer and all the exclusives were given to them. It was crazy, it was just so Tom could walk around and say ‘Oh we got a good splash in the Observer.’ Who cares?”

Perhaps  psycho-spinner Baldwin, whose main contribution to Miliband’s mauling was his tasteless remarks on Ed’s “Milly Dowler moment“, actually left the party to powder his nose?

As China’s Shanghai Composite index slides by 8.5% in a day, its biggest one-day percentage loss since 2007, Damian McBride offers his prophecy of doom:

Advice on the looming crash, No.1: get hard cash in a safe place now; don't assume banks & cashpoints will be open, or bank cards will work.

— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) August 24, 2015

Crash advice No.2: do you have enough bottled water, tinned goods & other essentials at home to live a month indoors? If not, get shopping.

— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) August 24, 2015

Crash advice No.3: agree a rally point with your loved ones in case transport and communication gets cut off; somewhere you can all head to.

— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) August 24, 2015

Zombie Apocalypse: This Time The QE Won’t Work…

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Former political spin-doctor and pub quiz enthusiast Damian McBride takes you through the runners for the post of Deputy Prime Minister with the latest odds from Paddy Power.

If you think the outcome of the election is difficult to call, just take a look at Paddy’s superb new market on the identity of the next Deputy Prime Minister. As Sherlock Holmes said in The Red-Headed League, “it is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.” Well, pipe at the ready, let me try and solve the case a bit quicker than that.

Favourite in the betting is ‘no-one’ at 7/4, reflecting the fact that there’s no genuine need – either constitutional or practical – for the PM to appoint a deputy. That said, we’ve had a Deputy PM in place during 27 of the last 36 years, so whether we’ve got a minority government, a majority or a coalition, there’s a decent chance the modern tradition will continue. So my fellow detectives, who are the candidates?

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The final pint was poured at the O’Reilly’s pub in Kentish Town  last night, which is being re-branded as some sort of awful hipster dive. With locals gathering to mourn, one person was conspicuous by his absence. The local Labour candidate.

Local Tory candidate @Will_Blair leads the mourning at O'Reilly's. @Keir_Starmer & @natalieben are nowhere to be seen. Tells you everything.

— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) February 1, 2015

It's safe to say @Keir_Starmer would rather be seen dead than be seen in a pub like O'Reilly's. If he even knows where it is. #VoteBlair

— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) February 1, 2015

Presumably a bit rough and ready for Sir Keir.

Though in Damian’s defence it was 9:38pm…