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Draper has not withdrawn from the line-up the organisers say.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.

Guess that is what happens when you make Derek Draper’s “lunch partner”, James Macintyre, political correspondent.  That source has now dried up…

Last night, as Dale predicted, Draper sent out an email to LabourList subscribers saying that he was stepping down as editor.  No indication as to what has happened to Tom Miller, who aided and abetted Derek in his smear operations.  The new editor, Alex Smith, seems to have decent intentions.  Guido still has some reservations.  Who pays Alex’s wages?  Who funds Tangent Labs development of the rather clunky and overly expensive bespoke software and hosting on which the site runs?   Is Derek still the proprietor?

ConservativeHome and LibDemVoice are much more transparent about funding.  Some clarity from LabourList on this might be a good idea going forward.  Guido genuinely wishes Alex well with the new direction of the site.

Guido is getting worried that we have heard nothing from Dolly for some time.  His Twitter no longer tweets and his belligerent banter has burned out.  His Life Support book is on offer for £2.99 in Oxfam.  It was only a month ago that he was hosting the book’s glittering launch party attended by the likes of the powerful Damian McBride and glamorous Kate Garraway, host of TV’s “The Biggest Loser”.

Please buy his book, Guido is getting worried.

Picture taken yesterday in the Oxfam bookshop on Strutton Ground, Westminster by the Stray Taoist.

Further to Guido’s story about the BACP Crisis Meeting Over Draper, the psychotherapist’s professional body has confirmed that the

BACP has received a number of queries regarding Derek Draper to which we are responding. Any complaints received will be treated seriously and processed according to our Professional Conduct Procedures.

As soon as they are known, the outcomes of all Professional Conduct Procedures are published in our journal Therapy Today (which automatically goes out to all 30,200 BACP members) and also to the general public via our website. All such proceedings are conducted on the principles of natural justice. All parties to any complaint have a reasonable period during which to make their representations.

Guido understands that Dr Annie Hickox, a qualified clinical psychologist who has worked in the NHS for more than 20 years and holds qualifications up to and including a PhD (unlike Dolly) is one of many who have written to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy in order to register concern. Dr Hickox says Draper “clearly is not fit to work in his chosen field”.

Draper’s wife Kate Garraway is presenting “The Biggest Loser” on ITV weekdays at 4 p.m., Guido will resist the obvious temptation…

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy is having a crisis meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) to discuss the continuing associate membership of Derek Draper.  No one was available for comment when Guido called to contact the BACP.  It is hard to see how someone who thought it “absolutely brilliant” to use mental health issues as a means of political attack can remain a member.  It is hardly compatible with the high ethical standards required by the BACP.

The BACP can not say it had not been warned.  Complaints had already been made to the association over his misrepresentation (in Berkeley, not at Berekeley) of his credentials.  The BACP Ethical Framework [PDF] insists that

Particular care should be taken over the integrity of presenting qualifications, accreditation and professional standing.

Guido revealed last month that he had been expelled from the Wright Institute before completing the course of study.  This second subject of concern makes it impossible for him to continue.   Guido understands that the original complaints were rejected by the BACP on the grounds that they “politically motivated” and did not come from clients or other members of the association.

Guido has been unable to confirm if formal written complaints have been made by disgusted psychotherapists who fear he is bringing psychotherapy into disrepute.  BACP committee members themselves are said to be concerned. The Wednesday meeting is likely to be a precursor to a formal Professional Conduct Hearing.

While Guido does have a detailed picture of the discussions held at Labour HQ, the attendees at the two Red Rag meetings held at Unite HQ are less loquacious.  Look at the people at that meeting; Andrew Dodghson, Charlie Whelan, Damian McBride, Derek Draper were all copied in on the shocking  smear emails as proposed by McBride.  These are not people through whom the milk of human kindness runs.  Charlie Whelan is not a bleeding heart known for his charity towards Tories, Damian McBride is the  poisonous destroyer of Brown’s internal and external enemies.  Derek Draper thinks it “absolutely brilliant” to attack the wives and lovers of Tories.  Kevin Maguire is not merely a partisan journalist, he is an integral part of Brown’s spin and smear operation.  Even after the existence of the smear emails was revealed, Maguire was still peddling innuendo from them about “Cameron’s alleged embarrassing complaint of a highly personal nature”.

Maguire has been touring the broadcast studios claiming that at the Unite meetings they just watched a few YouTube videos and discussed Obama’s online campaign strategy – the email invitation however says it was a meeting to discuss the Red Rag attack site.  Do you believe Maguire or the written evidence?

Maguire’s claims are laughably implausible.  Here we have a gang of the most vicious  Labour propagandists with a visceral tribal hatred of their opponents, yet Maguire would have you believe they were merely singing “Kumbaya” around the Unite boardroom table.  The meeting took place some five weeks before the infamous emails were circulated to four of the six attendees at the meeting.  We know from Draper’s “absolutely brilliant” reply that they were almost ready to go live with the smear and spin  site.

No email has come to light cancelling the project.  We only have Derek’s word for it that they were going to abandon the idea for the site.  The fact that the site was still online when the existence of the emails came out strongly suggests the project was not cancelled.

The explanations don’t make sense, if they were going to do something legitimate, why keep it secret from all the Labour bloggers at those Draper organised breakfasts? If they really wanted to try out new video ideas, wouldn’t Maguire’s own Mirror blog be the perfect place to do it? The only explanation that makes sense is that they wanted to keep it away from the loose tongued Labour bloggers.

When you have people like Draper, McBride and Whelan plotting in secret it can only mean they were up to no good. Maguire is bullshitting.  He says it was innocent, the written evidence suggests otherwise.  There is nothing innocent about Whelan, Draper and McBride…

The Labour Party’s general secretary, Ray Collins, denies knowledge of the Red Rag attack site.  Yet the News of the World placed him at a planning meeting held on December 1, 2008 at Unite’s HQ.  He was there with the now disgraced spin and smear merchants Damian McBride and Derek Draper.  On the Unite side were Charlie Whelan and Andrew  Dodghson.  Kevin Maguire completed the dirty half-dozen. Guido believes that although Collins did not know of the specific intended smears outlined in the January email by McBride to Draper, he did however know of the intention to launch the anonymous attack site.  Nor was he the only person at Labour HQ who was aware of the intention to set-up the “plausibly deniable” site.

On Friday Guido spoke with Dan Thain, who was until recently the Labour Party’s eCampaigns Manager based in Labour’s HQ at 39 Victoria Street, he now works in the London office of Blue State Digital (famous for being Obama’s online people).  He admitted on the record that:

• He knew in principle about the plan to set-up an anonymous Labour attack blog.
• He denied knowing about specifics such as the smears or the name of the site.

He indicated that Sue Macmillan,  New Media Campaigns Taskforce Leader at Labour HQ, was also in the know.  She worked closely with Derek Draper.  The obvious question for Collins, Thain and Macmillan to answer is:

Why if it was not the intention to use the Red Rag site for below the belt, spin and smears, was it set up with an anonymous and therefore plausibly deniable structure, outside the Labour Party?

The mere fact that they didn’t want it to have any link back to the party was because it was always intended for it to be used to smear opponents in a way that they would be too ashamed to do openly.  That was implicit in the setting up of the site.  Ray Collins can hardly claim to have no responsibility for the site  just because he didn’t know which particular smears were going to be used.  He still helped plan and facilitate the setting-up of the smear site.

Numerous “blogger’s breakfasts” were organised by Derek Draper at Labour HQ with invitations sent to dozens of bloggers [invitation list for the December 4, 2008 blogger's breakfast revealed by Guido here].  Attendees of the blogger’s breakfasts organised by Derek Draper held at Labour HQ confirm to Guido that the idea of setting up an attack blog was openly discussed.   In fact at all the meetings the discussions invariably came back to how to take on  and counter  the success of the ConservativeHome, Iain Dale and Guido blogs.  Guido has a detailed picture of discussions held at those breakfasts.

+++ Developing +++

Guido was too late to get the “Save Draper” campaign going.  People don’t realise what a disaster this is – what will Guido do for comedy material?

Labour’s general-secretary Ray Collins has thrown him overboard already.  In an NEC announcement leaked to Iain Dale, rather than LabourList, the entertainment provided by Derek was brought to an end.

Ray Collins, General Secretary of the Labour Party,

“As you will recall from November’s NEC Away Day, last year Derek Draper volunteered one day a week of his time to Labour HQ on an unpaid basis. He subsequently left Victoria Street to set up the Labourlist blog.  Since then he has offered advice and opinion on an adhoc basis which ended in March of this year and will not be sought in the future.

“I receive advice and opinion from many Labour Party supporters in my work as General Secretary but I decide what advice I take or seek and act in a manner appropriate with my values and those of the Party which certainly does not include smears or personal attacks. I want to reiterate that Derek Draper does not hold a position or role with the Labour Party and this will remain the case.

“To make clear Labourlist is an independent left-of-centre website and blog. The Labour Party did not fund its activities. What the Party has supported is an effort to promote left-of-centre bloggers more generally by bringing interested supporters together at a series of events.

“I absolutely support the Prime Minister’s view that scurrilous rumour, gossip and personal attacks have no place in politics and no place in the Labour Party.”

Psychologies magazine, where Derek Draper had a regular column, announced today that:

“Derek’s position is being investigated independently by the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists to reveal if he really is guilty of the allegations made about him, what the background and details of the story are, and how all of this affects his standing as a therapist.”

Guido doesn’t have any psychotherapy qualifications, so this is not a professional judgement.  In Guido’s opinion a man who thinks smearing an innocent woman over mental health issues is “absolutely brilliant” is not fit to deal with vulnerable people.  The BACP has been dragging its feet over concerns that Draper lied about his qualifications.  It is a fact that Draper was expelled from his course at the Wright Institute (in Berkeley, not at Berkeley).

His desk is already on Ebay…