#ref:stu

It starts with Paul describing it as a 'deadly rivalry' which was rooted in two things; his jealousy about John's attention and the fact Stu wasn't good enough on bass:

PAUL: He and I used to have a deadly rivalry. I don't know why. He was older and a strong friend of John's. When I look back on it I think we were probably fighting for John's attention. He was older and John was a year older than me, and that year makes a hell of a lot of difference at the age of eighteen. So I wasn't such a big friend of Stuart's. I was always practical, thinking our band could be great, but with him on bass there was always something holding us back.

Then the way Barry Miles tees up the next quote from Paul is by saying this:

There has been a lot made of the supposed animosity between Paul and Stuart but most of it is rumour, exaggerated and amplified by time.

Which (to me anyway) sounds like Paul's going to try and soften it, 'Me and Stu did mostly get along fine' or something, but then the quote is:

PAUL: It wasn't just me. Legend so often divides these things neatly down the middle: John was hard, I was soft; John loved Stuart, I didn't. But John was perfectly aware that Stuart couldn't play and it wasn't just me telling Stu to turn his back to the camera, it would often be John saying that. We used to ask him to turn away and do a moody thing looking over his shoulder so no one could see that his fingers weren't in the same key as the rest of us. It wasn't a good thing for a group to have someone who was such an obviously weak link. I think John felt a sense of relief when Stuart stayed in Hamburg. In a way, it was actually very convenient. Nobody wanted to sack him; it would not have got to that because of his personal friendship with John. But nobody was that sad to see him stay in Hamburg. It seemed right that we all had to move on and I quite easily got into bass.

I believe John had talked to Brian about Stuart. John's conscience was still bothering him, but even without that he would have wanted to involve his friend. The Beatles were doing swimmingly, big fish in the Merseybeat pond. It was natural for John to want Stuart to be part of it. His suggestion to Brian was a compromise, one he thought would also keep Paul and George happy - and quiet. Stuart was a creative artist and it was the job of art director for the Beatles that Brian envisaged for him. But after Stuart returned to Hamburg, Brian wrote to him and in the letter that I read asked him if he would like to help him 'manage the boys'. He wrote: 'I didn't know anyone as lovely as you existed in Liverpool.' Brian said he would meet up again with Stuart in Germany and they could discuss it further Even if Brian did have another agenda he was certainly serious about wanting my brother to be involved.