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Derek Draper
Derek William Draper (15 August 1967 – 3 January 2024) was an English political lobbyist and psychotherapist.
As a political advisor, he was involved in two political scandals: "Lobbygate" in 1998, and another in 2009 while he was editor of the LabourList website. He authored two books, Blair's 100 Days and Life Support.
Draper made headlines in March 2020 when he contracted COVID-19 during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in England, and became seriously ill with an exceptionally serious case of long COVID; he was hospitalised for over a year and continued to require round-the-clock care upon release. He returned to hospital with extreme complications in December 2023, during which time he sustained a cardiac arrest and died on 3 January 2024.
Derek William Draper was born in Chorley on 15 August 1967. He was educated at Southlands High School until 1984. He later attended Runshaw College in Leyland and the University of Manchester. While at the university, Draper provided hospitality for Ken Livingstone, who had missed his train after a Labour Club meeting. Livingstone was reportedly astonished to find a large poster of Labour's deputy leader Roy Hattersley displayed in Draper's student room. At around this time, he first met Charlotte Raven and later dated her.
Draper began his political career in 1990, when he became the constituency secretary for Nick Brown. In 1992, he left this job and went to work as a researcher for the MP for Hartlepool, Peter Mandelson. In 1996, he became a director of a lobbying firm called GPC Market Access, and was employed by them until early 1999. While working at GPC Market Access, he set up the New Labour organisation Progress with Liam Byrne. During the late 1990s, Draper worked as the Political Editor of the Modern Review, was briefly a columnist for the Daily Express, and a presenter on Talk Radio UK.
Seen as a close ally of Mandelson, and as an insider in the New Labour project, he was viewed by political journalists as well-connected, influential, colourful and gregarious, and was nicknamed "Dolly" in Westminster circles.
In 1998, while still working as a director at GPC Market Access, Draper was caught on tape, with Jonathan Mendelsohn, boasting to Greg Palast (an undercover reporter from The Observer posing as a businessman) about how they could sell access to government ministers and create tax breaks for their clients. When the press got hold of the story, they dubbed it "Lobbygate". On the recording, Draper said that "there are 17 people who count in this government ... [to] say I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of the century." Palast also wrote that Draper said, regarding his motivation: "I just want to stuff my bank account at 250 pounds an hour." According to Palast, "Draper was nothing more than a messenger boy, a factotum, a purveyor, a self-loving, over-scented clerk." Although he denied the allegations and accused The Observer of attempting to entrap him, he was widely ridiculed in the aftermath. Palast later wrote that the subsequent media coverage had over emphasised the role of lobbyists in the story at the expense of New Labour's "obsessional pursuit of the affections of the captains of industry and media ... twisting law and ethics to win the approval of this corporate elite".
Following his involvement in the "Lobbygate" scandal, Draper was sacked from his job at the Daily Express and generally shunned by Labour insiders. His friend Peter Mandelson said that Draper "has a fine intelligence, but sometimes I am afraid he misuses that intelligence. He gets above himself. But now he has been cut down to size and I think probably he will learn a very hard lesson from what has happened."
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Derek Draper
Derek William Draper (15 August 1967 – 3 January 2024) was an English political lobbyist and psychotherapist.
As a political advisor, he was involved in two political scandals: "Lobbygate" in 1998, and another in 2009 while he was editor of the LabourList website. He authored two books, Blair's 100 Days and Life Support.
Draper made headlines in March 2020 when he contracted COVID-19 during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in England, and became seriously ill with an exceptionally serious case of long COVID; he was hospitalised for over a year and continued to require round-the-clock care upon release. He returned to hospital with extreme complications in December 2023, during which time he sustained a cardiac arrest and died on 3 January 2024.
Derek William Draper was born in Chorley on 15 August 1967. He was educated at Southlands High School until 1984. He later attended Runshaw College in Leyland and the University of Manchester. While at the university, Draper provided hospitality for Ken Livingstone, who had missed his train after a Labour Club meeting. Livingstone was reportedly astonished to find a large poster of Labour's deputy leader Roy Hattersley displayed in Draper's student room. At around this time, he first met Charlotte Raven and later dated her.
Draper began his political career in 1990, when he became the constituency secretary for Nick Brown. In 1992, he left this job and went to work as a researcher for the MP for Hartlepool, Peter Mandelson. In 1996, he became a director of a lobbying firm called GPC Market Access, and was employed by them until early 1999. While working at GPC Market Access, he set up the New Labour organisation Progress with Liam Byrne. During the late 1990s, Draper worked as the Political Editor of the Modern Review, was briefly a columnist for the Daily Express, and a presenter on Talk Radio UK.
Seen as a close ally of Mandelson, and as an insider in the New Labour project, he was viewed by political journalists as well-connected, influential, colourful and gregarious, and was nicknamed "Dolly" in Westminster circles.
In 1998, while still working as a director at GPC Market Access, Draper was caught on tape, with Jonathan Mendelsohn, boasting to Greg Palast (an undercover reporter from The Observer posing as a businessman) about how they could sell access to government ministers and create tax breaks for their clients. When the press got hold of the story, they dubbed it "Lobbygate". On the recording, Draper said that "there are 17 people who count in this government ... [to] say I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of the century." Palast also wrote that Draper said, regarding his motivation: "I just want to stuff my bank account at 250 pounds an hour." According to Palast, "Draper was nothing more than a messenger boy, a factotum, a purveyor, a self-loving, over-scented clerk." Although he denied the allegations and accused The Observer of attempting to entrap him, he was widely ridiculed in the aftermath. Palast later wrote that the subsequent media coverage had over emphasised the role of lobbyists in the story at the expense of New Labour's "obsessional pursuit of the affections of the captains of industry and media ... twisting law and ethics to win the approval of this corporate elite".
Following his involvement in the "Lobbygate" scandal, Draper was sacked from his job at the Daily Express and generally shunned by Labour insiders. His friend Peter Mandelson said that Draper "has a fine intelligence, but sometimes I am afraid he misuses that intelligence. He gets above himself. But now he has been cut down to size and I think probably he will learn a very hard lesson from what has happened."