Damian McBride

Damian McBride (born 1974) is a British political advisor. He is a former Whitehall civil servant and 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, before becoming a special adviser. In 2024 he was appointed a special adviser to Yvette Cooper, Home Secretary in the Labour government of Keir Starmer.

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 10 Downing Street email account.