McBride’s publisher fights protest pensioner

Verbal battles over Damian McBride’s memoirs at the Labour conference escalated into actual fisticuffs, as the ex-spin doctor’s publisher stepped in to stop a protester disrupting the publicity drive for his controversial memoirs.

Iain Dale, of Biteback Publishing, was involved in a scuffle with the pensioner on the Brighton seafront in an effort to stop him appearing on screen behind McBride during a series of media interviews.

The protester — a familiar face outside party conferences, where he appears with banners opposing smoking or nuclear energy — managed to get himself into shot as Mr McBride spoke to ITV1’s Daybreak.