Damian McBride

Damian McBride
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Peterhouse, University of Cambridge
Occupation	Civil Servant, School Business Liaison Officer
Known for	Special adviser to Gordon Brown

Damian McBride is a British political advisor. He is a former Whitehall civil servant and former special adviser to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. McBride began his civil service career at HM Customs and Excise. He worked with Customs and Excise and later became Head of Communications at the UK Treasury, remaining there until 2008.

On 11 April 2009, he resigned his position after it emerged on a political blog that he and another Labour Party advisor, Derek Draper, had exchanged emails discussing the possibility of disseminating rumours McBride had fabricated about the private lives of some Conservative Party politicians and their spouses. The emails from McBride had been sent from his No. 10 Downing Street email account.

McBride was born and raised in North London to Irish parents. McBride was educated at Finchley Catholic High School, a boys state school in London. He attended Peterhouse, Cambridge where he studied history. He wrote his final-year dissertation in praise of inciting violence and rumour-mongering in politics titled "Far More Important Than Politics? Public Policy and the Impact of Urban Riots, 1964-8". The thesis was supervised by Tony Badger, who later commented: "We disagreed over the value of the riots – I thought they were counter-productive – but he was very focused, and it was an excellent thesis". Badger tried to persuade McBride to do a PhD.

Following a career with HM Customs and Excise, McBride joined Her Majesty's Treasury while Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and after coming to the attention of Brown he was appointed Head of Communications at the department in 2003. Within two years he was working as Brown's special adviser, and oversaw his campaign to become prime minister in 2007.

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