As someone who was fond of Derek Draper (a feeling that probably wasn’t mutual, as I nicked his bird) it was strange to see photographs of his funeral. It seemed like a state occasion for some legendary leader who had died in battle defending his country, rather than for the husband of a likeable TV presenter who had been unlucky enough to catch a virulent version of a sickness which so many shook off. Sir Elton John sang; Sir Tony Blair speechified. Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls and Alistair Campbell showed up; the Blair Bunch reunited. The dignity of Draper’s widow and children sat oddly next to this ghastly bunch of carpetbaggers, reminding us that before he found redemption, Derek became famous – notorious – for revealing the hollowness at the heart of New Labour.

Populism exists because elitists like Campbell really believe that they know better than the rest of us

It’s hard not to see his life as akin to a French novel – Bel Ami with barm cakes. Derek Draper (even his name was novel-ish) was a thrusting young man from a working-class Northern family, one of the kind who sees success as an end in itself and isn’t fussy about how they get it – the kind who reads What Makes Sammy Run? as an instruction manual. At 25 he went to work for Peter Mandelson, chief cheerleader of the New Labour project; a few years later he became director of a lobbying firm called GPC Market Access, which turned out to be every bit as dodgy as it sounds. He was soon taped boasting to an undercover reporter – Greg Palast of the Observer, posing as a businessman – that GPC could flog access to government ministers and create tax breaks for their clients. Draper babbled ‘There are 17 people who count in this government and to say I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of the century.’

QOSHE - Give it a rest / The enduring ghastliness of Alastair Campbell - Julie Burchill
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Give it a rest / The enduring ghastliness of Alastair Campbell

30 14
26.02.2024

As someone who was fond of Derek Draper (a feeling that probably wasn’t mutual, as I nicked his bird) it was strange to see photographs of his funeral. It seemed like a state occasion for some legendary leader who had died in battle defending his country, rather than for the husband of a likeable TV presenter who had been unlucky enough to catch a virulent version of a sickness which so many shook off. Sir Elton John sang; Sir Tony Blair speechified. Gordon........

© The Spectator


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