McBride in frame for £22,000 school job

Gordon Brown's former media adviser, Damian McBride, is planning to take a job working for his old school.

Mr McBride, 35, who was forced to resign in April after emails were published revealing that he planned a campaign to smear senior Tories, is said to be on a shortlist of three for a £22,000 post as "business and community manager" at Finchley Catholic High School in north London. He would not be the first spin doctor to swap politics for education.

In 2003, a former special adviser Jo Moore began training for a new career as a primary school teacher – two years after she was forced to resign for describing 11 September 2001 as a good day to "bury bad news".

More recently, Peter Hyman, a senior aide to Tony Blair, went to work at an inner-London comprehensive. And Gordon Brown said this weekend that he might move to teaching after leaving office. "It's starting to look like it might become a well-trodden path," said Paul Richards, special adviser to the former cabinet minister Hazel Blears.