The National Organisation of Labour Students’ Philip Honour, a campaigner and listed contributor to Draperlist, wrote on Dolly’s Wikipedia entry that “A rumor that Derek has been asked to handover control of Labourlist by influential Labour party insiders is yet to be confirmed.” Guido understands that it was in fact Dougie Alexander who had a frank exchange of words with Derek.
Mencap accept Draper’s apology (as reported in the Indy this morning) over “Window-Licker” abuse and consider the matter closed. On the other hand MIND, the mental health charity which (as reported by this evening’s London Standard) made Derek “Mental health Journalist of the Year 2007”, would rather not comment – even through gritted teeth. Draper’s press handling as skilful as ever.
Guido keeps calling and emailing his alma mater the Wright Institute (in Berkeley, not at Berkeley). Unfortunately, it seems to be just an answerphone at the other end…
And finally: after last night’s premiere of Draper’s Downfall, some unkind Labour wags are calling DraperList the “Volks Blog”. Derek himself Twitters that he is appalled, embarrassed and flattered by the parody. So one more time with the flattery:
Ed Davey is very chuffed at having secured the attendance of Howard Dean at the LibDems Spring Conference in a fortnight. Dean will be advising them on his experiences of online campaigning and, errrm, losing. Still at least he made an impact on the national psyche, with his famous screeeaaaam. Given today’s polling, perhaps Clegg needs to clear his throat…
The Prime Mentalist’s personal ratings plummet: Two thirds (64%) are dissatisfied with Gordon Brown.
UPDATE :
From the small print of the poll:
The public’s opinion of how David Cameron is doing his job as leader of the Conservative Party has shown a slight increase since last month: 43% are satisfied and 34% dissatisfied, yielding a ‘net’ figure of +9, which is a three point increase from last month (last month’s figures are 44% satisfied and 38% dissatisfied).
Similar to last month, around a third (35%) of the public are satisfied with the way Nick Clegg is doing his job as leader of the Liberal Democrats, and a quarter (26%) are dissatisfied. As in previous months, however, the most frequent response to this question is ‘don’t know’ (39%).
The deal is not yet sealed for Dave and Clegg still can’t make an impact…
Jackie Ashley set the cat amongst the pigeons yesterday with this story:In it she claimed that Gordon was being lined up for an international job as a super-regulator by Angela Merkel. Jackie said the story “comes from quite close to the inner core.” Like the Deputy-Leader’s office? From another member of the sisterhood? Ben Brogan is pointing the finger at Harriet Harman, claiming that “Brown was the victim of a botched spin operation by the party’s deputy leader amid signs that his authority is weakening.” Who better to be a caretaker leader if Gordon goes off into the sunset on a lifeboat or for ill-health reasons than the current deputy leader? She could hold the party together as it takes the inevitable punishment at the polls, performing the same role that Michael Howard did for the Tories. Labour could do worse…
Ever the contrarian, it falls to Guido to defend poor Derek, the pressure must be getting to him, universally criticised even by his own readership.
How else do you explain that after getting a little bit of criticism from some of his readers on his DraperList blog, he abused them as “Window Lickers”. Which is something Guido too has done in exasperation with some of the loonies who leave comments on this blog. The fact is that any high traffic site attracts a fair number of nutters, and unfortunately they are far more likely to leave comments than ordinary readers. Derek has now made amends and given two full apologies, both on DraperList and his own personal blog.
Guido usually has to retro-moderate comments, deleting those he deems over-the-top or are pointed out to him as such, after they are published. Fortunately for Derek he has a £20,000-a-year assistant (paid for by the Unite union) to filter out the bad comments for him. Unfortunately they couldn’t stop Draper leaving offensive derogatory comments and saving him from himself.
Just before Christmas Guido wrote a long piece reflecting on the problem of the “Economics of Blog Comments“. Derek must have read it – it was in that piece that Guido referred to some of his comment makers as “window-lickers”. Worth re-reading Derek. Still perhaps having learnt another lesson, he will show a bit more humility on this subject now. Or maybe not…
UPDATE : It is a rite of passage and a tradition in the blogosphere to do a mash-up of Downfall at important moments. Laugh out loud at Draper’s Downfall. It is priceless.
Guido thought the BMW Mini plant was doomed back when Gordon met the works apprentices. However production struggled on until last Thursday when the curse was doubled. Gordon signed a Mini for a charity photo-opportunity. Four days later:
The next day was Friday the thirteenth, truly ominous. He travelled to visit Tata’s Corus Steel plant in the Midlands. This morning the Indian Times reports
Mr B Muthuraman MD of TATA Steel is targeting to save about GBP 600 million this year from production cuts at its UK subsidiary Corus. Mr Muthuraman added that “Corus has cut production … initiated several short term measures in terms of cost reduction”
The accursed one-eyed son of the manse continues to desolate the land…
The Tories are launching a celebrity strewn campaign this morning for “Honest Food“, by which they mean clear labelling of country of origin. Fair enough, but it smacks of protectionism, what the wonks call a “non-tariff trade barrier”. The benefits of free trade are that we get the cheaper goods and services from countries exploiting their comparative advantages.
Nick Herbert MP, the new shadow farming minister who should really know better, will be putting the crypto-protectionist case to the NFU conference this afternoon. If only British farmers were more successful exporters they would not be so keen on this idea. They should be exploiting the collapse of the pound to open up export markets.
The campaign video was quite good though:
Guido will be sticking to Kerrygold butter, Irish pork sausages, Italian truffles* and French foie gras – no matter what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Prue Leith and Anthony Worrall Thompson say.
*Guido recommends the excellent eFoodies for all your caviar, truffles and foie gras requirements. They let you order online and deliver to your door.
When the man in charge of the nation’s finances, Alistair Darling, has been caught fiddling his expenses, and Jacqui Smith, the woman who is in charge of crime prevention is accused of corruption, you have a government which is a kleptocracy. The New Labour promise to be “whiter than white” is like a sick joke now.
Lord Moonie’s money grubbing ways are a disgrace to the House of Lords, he also aided and abetted another expenses fiddle by facilitating Alistair Darling lodging with him and claiming expenses based on Moonie’s flat being Darling’s “main home”, in just the same way that Jacqui claims her sister’s house is her “main home”. Already under investigation for Cash for Amendments, Lord Moonie is mired in fresh sleaze after his business associates were arrested in a police probe into alleged fraud in the NHS.
Richard Nawrot and George Henderson, who run Fife-based Americium Developments, were arrested in London last month on “suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud and misconduct in a public office”.
Americium currently pays Moonie, a close ally of Gordon Brown, up to £40,000 a year in consultancy fees. The peer’s relationship with the company dates back to October 2006.
Two of Americium’s US clients have told the Sunday Herald they had lunch with Moonie and Nawrot at Westminster and that the peer later gave a tour of the parliament.
One client said he discussed a potential NHS contract with Moonie at the lunch.
Moonie was close to Gordon and at the heart of the Scottish Raj. He knows where the bodies are buried. This could potentially get very messy for Brown.
Thank you for your email drawing attention to some unsavoury comments on the Friday Caption Contest. They have now been deleted. We really value your input to the blog and in particular the amusing contributions you have made this week to the success of www.Order-Order.com.
As you know the purpose of the Friday Caption Contest is primarily to allow Guido to go for a long lunch on a Friday afternoon without having to think up any original content for the blog. It appears it has performed the same function for you.
If you would like to formally apply for the position of Comment Moderator (there is a vacancy) please send your updated CV to guido.fawkes@order-order.com. You will find it a much more demanding job than you are used to, this is after all a high traffic website.
We will however need academic references and certificates (original copies please).
Tribune’s Rene Lavanchy reports back from yesterday’s official press launch of DraperList, where Draper lost the plot shouting at the Guardian’s David Hencke
“Justify the headline in that fucking story! Go and change it before you become the laughing stock of the lobby!… Doing Guido Fawkes’ dirty work…”
Sparks Fly as Draper Meets his Tormentor By Henry Deedes
Derek Draper yesterday became embroiled in the sort of fracas Westminster hasn’t seen for many a year. The editor of the much-vaunted DraperList website was hosting a “Bloggers Breakfast”, an event aimed at discussing Labour’s internet strategy attended by Peter Mandelson. Proceedings were civil until The Guardian’s political journalist David Hencke entered the fray.
“Draper squared up to him, jabbing his finger, insisting he’d end Hencke’s career,” says an onlooker. “It was quite nasty.” The row was about a Hencke piece accusing Draper of “spinning” his qualification to imply that he had obtained an MA in clinical psychology at the world-renowned Berkeley branch of the University of California. Draper went to the Wright Institute in Berkeley.
Draper, a qualified psychotherapist, rebuffs the claim. “People can say what they like about my politics but if they question my professional reputation it is more serious,” he said. “It made me angry and I didn’t have a problem with showing it.”
One account says that Draper had to be restrained by a horrified Labour press officer. Now what was it that Draper told that blogger’s fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference last year? The quote was:
“If you want to be a superstar blogger and get the headlines yet lose Labour the election, you can just f**k off.“
Psycho-therapist heal thy self.
Guido has more bad news for Derek – Guido has more evidence coming that Draper has misled people as to the source of his qualifications. Come on Derek, serve that writ or “you can just f**k off.“
Canada, alone in the industrialised world, has not faced a single bank failure, has no need for a bailout or government intervention in the financial markets. According to the World Economic Forum, Canada’s banking sector is best placed to weather the global financial turbulence (which apparently began in America).
Dave has just told LBC Radio: “I think it is also important that the arrangements that we go into, we can explain them in a reasonable way to a reasonable person, and they would think that we were being reasonable. I don’t think her arrangements really pass that test.” On the subject of her claiming her main residence is her spare room Dave said: “I do think it is a little bit hard to believe, but she has now got to defend it in the court of public opinion.”She may have trousered £116,000 but Guido thinks it will cost her the parliamentary seat.
David Hencke has got Draper to admit that contrary to the impression he gave him for a recent Guardian profile, his qualification comes not from the world famous Berkeley, but from a small private institution called the Wright Institute in California.
According to the report
Unlike Berkeley, the privately owned Wright Institute, according to its website, does not offer full-time degrees. Instead it is aimed at graduates who want most of the week off for other activities. It says: “Our new masters’ programme is designed for students who want a high-quality graduate education and prefer to attend classes on weekends only.”
This course is remarkably good value by American standards, for just $6,525 you too can get a masters…
UPDATE : Draper says this morning that he didn’t go on this particular course, his course was full time. He says he never said he studied at Berkeley, University of California, he said he went to Berkeley, California. To study. Different you see. Yet on his professional website it mentions nowhere that he studied at the Wright Institute, just “Berkeley, California”. It is all the Guardian’s fault and he is going to sue. Stop digging Derek. You will be laughed out of court.
Derek Draper boasts of having an M.A. in Clinical Psychology, Guido wondered if his education could perhaps be applied usefully to the occupant of No. 10, Downing Street. So Guido thought it would be a bit of a laugh to track down Derek’s Master’s dissertation and see if it had any pearls of wisdom that could be applied to the state of mind of the Prime Mentalist.
A quick bit of Google research brought up a recent profile (July) and biography in the Guardian written by David Hencke. In the largely sympathetic article we learnt that Derek is a reformed character and no longer the legendary unsavoury spinner. Even a bitter old foe like Roy Hattersley has been won round:
He is Like a Character in a novel. There is always a whiff of danger because you don’t know what he is going to do next
The spin doctor turned psychotherapist has returned to the Labour fold … Hattersley, who recently lunched with Draper, says: “I believe he is now a changed man. He’s got older, is more measured. I don’t whether it is because he is now a psychotherapist or his marriage but he has changed. He will be an asset to the party.”
Education Southlands high school, Chorley; University of Manchester, economics; University of California, Berkeley, MA in clinical psychology
Family Married to GMTV presenter Kate Garraway. One daughter
Career 1990-92, constituency secretary to Nick Brown; 92-96, researcher for Peter Mandelson; 96-99, director of lobbying firm GPC Market Access. Briefly a columnist for the Express and presenter on Talk Radio; Currently a psychotherapist with a practice in London.
Having now discovered where he got his qualifications Guido contacted the registrar of the prestigious Berkeley campus at the University of California to track down the dissertation. He, and the academic librarian, were unsuccessful in finding the dissertation. Strangely the registrar could find no actual record of a student called Derek Draper:
Because the information you provided did not match any records in our database, we asked the school to research your request. The school was unable to locate either a degree or enrollment record for the subject of your verification request.
Nothing. Derek Draper never studied psychology at Berkeley, University of California. His professional practice website implies he did, though if you read it carefully it says “in” rather than “at”.
Like all good “celebs” Draper has an agent, the CV he sends out to potential bookers says, you guessed it; Berkeley, California. The truth is that a leopard can’t change its spots, he learnt how to spin from Mandelson, like his master he can’t help himself. Derek Draper wants to be Labour’s answer to Iain Dale, instead he seems more like Labour’s version of Jeffrey Archer. A fantasist who exaggerates himself for his own psychological reasons.
In a step which Guido self-consciously saw as a bit too “Westminster insider”, the producers of Westminster’s answer to the Oscars, the Channel 4 Political Awards, asked him to pre-record some pithy comments about the nominees. The idea being presumably that when Jon Snow says “and the nominees are…” they go to video with the names, plus a few talking heads handicapping the runners and riders before the envelope is finally opened and the announcement made followed by gushing luvvie acceptance speeches.[…] Read the rest
Dame Laura Cox report into Pestminster slams Bercow and his team…
“I find it difficult to envisage how the necessary changes can be successfully delivered, and the confidence of the staff restored, under the current senior House administration.”
The National Organisation of Labour Students’ Philip Honour, a campaigner and listed contributor to Draperlist, wrote on Dolly’s Wikipedia entry that “A rumor that Derek has been asked to handover control of Labourlist by influential Labour party insiders is yet to be confirmed.” Guido understands that it was in fact Dougie Alexander who had a frank exchange of words with Derek.
