From September 2008:

PR Week can reveal that the Labour Party is exploring plans for an online rapid rebuttal unit, designed to kill off damaging stories circulating in the blogosphere. Former lobbyist Derek Draper will oversee the initiative, having recently been called in by Labour’s general secretary to advise on how the party can communicate its message. Labour strategists are keen to respond to the growing influence of right-wing blogs.

Channel 4 covered the bright new dawn here.  It didn’t quite work out…

Official BACP statement here:

Derek Draper said: “I made clear to the BACP Appeal Panel my deep regret over the political email scandal I was involved in and apologise to my fellow BACP members and the general public for what was, undoubtedly, a stupid mistake. I have given guarantees to BACP that I will never be involved in such controversy again. I will carry out all my activities – inside my consulting room and outside it – in a careful and dignified way that ensures the public’s trust in me as a psychotherapist will not be undermined. In addition, my qualifications and experience will be listed clearly and in detail on my website (see below). BACP was right to respond to the legitimate queries it received but I am glad that the panel, having considered all the evidence, including my regret and these commitments, decided that it was fair and just that I should remain a member of the Association.”

Derek Draper has the following qualifications: An M.A. in Psychology from the American Psychological Association accredited Wright Institute in Berkeley* (2004) and a second M.A. in the Foundations of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy from the Tavistock Centre, London / Essex University (2009). The former was the result of three years full time study, the latter of two years of part-time study. As part of his first M.A. he undertook an extensive clinical training, undertaking over 1500 hours of supervised clinical work with different client populations and therapeutic modalities.

Guido has heard a rumour that Draper intends to write a follow up to his “First Hundred Days“, with the title “New Labour’s Last 100 Days”.  Draper did not return Guido’s calls…

*Guido will eat his blog if shown genuine pictures of Derek at the award ceremony for his Wright Institute M.A.

Peter Mandelson emailed Derek Draper that…

“The thing you need to understand is just how complex Gordon is. We are all complex, of course. But Gordon has developed fewer ways of masking and managing his insecurities. So of course what you say is right. The public personality of a politician is crucial (don’t I know) but you guys have to be careful that you don’t make it worse/more difficult for him to change his public personality by telling him he has got to do so and inundating him with opinions as to how he does it. He is a self-conscious person, physically and emotionally. He is not as comfortable with his own skin as, say, Tony was (is).”

Today was the first day back at school for the boys of Finchley Catholic High School.  Guido popped along early this morning to see one old boy and hardly recognised the middle-aged man strolling slowly across the school playground, stooping occasionally to pick up litter from the ground.  As Guido strode purposefully towards him he turned away entering a building where the staff were assembled for a first day briefing from the headmaster.  For a moment Guido thought the baseball cap disguise had been seen through.

“Damian!” Guido shouted at him, he turned in the doorway startled, “Greetings from Nadine Dorries”.  With a bemused look on his face he accepted the official Court papers, served by yours truly, on behalf of Nadine Dorries> Dorries, you will recall, is the MP he falsely accused of sleeping with another Tory MP in emails to Derek Draper, Kevin Maguire and Charlie Whelan.   Realising suddenly what had just happened he disappeared into the building as teachers and other bemused staff glimpsed across.  Damian never should have spilt that Guinness…

UPDATE : Mrs Draper took the papers on behalf of Dolly from Tory Bear.

When Guido was on his summer holidays in France, Damian McBride gave an interview to the BBC’s Radio 5 Live and  to the Guardian to try and draw a line under his Smeargate demise.

If you listen to the first minute and a half of that BBC interview he says at one point:

“… When I read back the emails I had errr written and I did that when Derek ahhh Draper called me and said that he thought his emails had been hacked into and errr we had a discussion about this, I thought and and he thought that the main issue was some emails that I had sent, err, about racism in the comments in the Guido Fawkes website.”

Now you may recall that Iain Dale and Guido both sent in Freedom of Information requests about the smear campaign directed at us from within Downing Street. Obviously Guido was aware of the existence of the emails (having said as much on Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics).  The emails basically instructed Draper on how to frame and phrase the smear.

Damian has now publicly confirmed that he sent them (in February, when Draper started smearing Dale and Guido as racists).  So why did the Cabinet Office produce some of the emails regarding Dale, but not the ones regarding Guido?  Guido only got emails sent by Draper, not the emails sent by McBride.  Guido has re-submitted an FoI to the Cabinet Office asking again for the emails Damian has now publicly confirmed he sent.

As Guido begins a month at Chateau Fawkes, Damian McBride surfaces to give his first interview. Speaking to the Guardian from a pub, they report

McBride has some unfinished business with “that bloke Fawkes”. “He sent me a text on the day I resigned saying: ‘You started it, I finished it’, he reveals. McBride, however, may not be finished yet.

Charming as ever.

You know Guido can’t be bothered to point to all the self-serving spin in the article. Suffice to say Smeargate wasn’t something put together in a few minutes as he claims, they had many planning meetings, including some at Unite’s HQ with Charlie Whelan in attendance. Lying again, that will be five Hail Marys Damian, what kind of example are you to the boys at Finchley Catholic High School?

Anyway, if Guido was in Damian’s shoes, he’d be more worried about the wrath of Nadine than getting revenge. Now Damian has a job her lawyers will be able to serve her writ at his place of work. They had been unable to locate him, until now…

UPDATE : Interesting that in the Radio 5 interview, Damian refers to the emails to Derek about off colour comments on this blog. When Guido made a Freedom of Information request for those very emails they came back with very little – certainly not the relevant emails.  Guido might have to return to this issue…

Far be it from Guido to advise the blogosphere’s esteemed lister-in-chief on how to make a list, nevertheless it has to be said his list of political Twitterers seems deficient: Boris Johnson is #1 by far with over forty thousand followers.

He has also forgotten Derek Draper with some four thousand followers.  Derek might not have achieved much, but this now silent Twitter feed was very important to him.  Let us not deny him his mega-twittery…

The Telegraph’s Mandrake reckons Damian McBride has got the £22,000 a year job as “Business and Community Manager” at Finchley Catholic High School.  Guido has been keeping an eye on this and as far as he knows it is still not official.  Guido is also keeping an eye on Draper’s status with the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy – they have yet to arrive at a decision on his professional standing.

Unbelievably Draper has been heard speculating on a possible return to politics.  Absolutely brilliant!

Sadly Guido’s old adversary Derek Draper ducked out of giving us the benefit of his PR and blogging expertise at PR Week’s “new media” conference at the very last moment.  Guido had to improvise his speech since he was expecting to just have another ding-dong with Draper.  Most speakers seemed to be using Draper as a case study in how not to win friends and influence people online. At the conference Guido learnt that LabourHome’s Alex Hilton has gone all corporate and formed a “Digital PR Consultancy” with David Prescott.  So no more monkeying around from him.

Incidentally, the Henry Jackson Society have organised a talk for next Tuesday to which they sent out invitations on Monday.  All tickets went straight away, much to the surprise of the non-partisan society which usually holds dry talks about geo-political flash points like the Middle East.  Such is the demand for tickets the organisers have now moved the event to the biggest room available in Parliament, the Grand Committee room.

When you know that the speakers on the subject of  ‘the internet: saviour or corruptor of democracy?’ include Nick Robinson, Guido and Sir Michael White, you would be right to guess that this could make the Hamas – Likud peace negotiations look calm by comparison.  Unlike Nick, Guido won’t be pulling his punches…

PR Week are holding a fancy New Media and Blogging conference this week with luminaries like DJ Collins from Google speaking (who incidentally was tapped to go spin do “strategic communications” for Downing Street, had drinks with Brown, told Google he was going, but backed out after a turf war with the bunker heavies before actually moving).

Draper has not withdrawn from the line-up the organisers say.  Guido is loooking forward particularly to hearing from Draper how to “Get The Tone Right To Achieve Maximum Coverage” and how to “Perfect your blogger Outreach Strategy”.  Also can’t wait to hear “How to Build Relationships with Bloggers”. Presumably by calling them racists.

Guido will also be speaking at the event on the subject of “sophisticated blogging”.  Honestly.

UPDATE : It is sold out.