DEREK DRAPER - YESTERDAY’S MAN DAMAGES LABOUR
Every now and again the phenomenon of political blogging itself becomes the story. The tedious details of the adolescent wheeze being floated (perhaps only half seriously) between Derek Draper and Damien McBride to smear prominent Tory politicians have been cooked and overcooked by those cynical gossips Iain Dale and Paul Staines (Guido Fawkes).
The substantive issues have been handled well by Sunny Hundal and friends at Liberal conspiracy.
Firstly, both Paul Staines and Iain Dale are past masters at the game of publishing unsubstantiated smear stories, and wallowing in the shallow detritus of the Westminster Village. Dale ran and ran with the innuendo about Gordon Brown being autistic, and Guido devoted articles to whether or not Gordon Brown picks his nose.
Secondly, the right wing blog circuit live in a self-referential bubble of mutual congratulation and admiration, that has little substance. The high rankings in lists like Wikio are more to do with them all perpetually boosting each other, than with readership. They also consistently confuse statistics about the hits they get with their number of unique visitors, which exaggerates their reach.
Iain Dale in particular has created a narrative that the right-wing and centre-right blogs are a dynamic maelstrom of critical reportage and commentary, whereas in his view the left and centre-left blogs are a wasteland. This interpretation has then been repeated by lazy commentators as fact.
As Sunny Hundal points out, there is in fact a relatively healthy left of centre blogosphere, but what distinguishes it from the right of centre blogs is a focus away from the incestuous irrelevancy of the Westminster Bedlam, and a discussion of real issues.
The thing is this: all the bloggers mentioned above [Iain Dale, Guido Fawkes, Conservative Home], Derek Draper, and the Westminster journos who buy into the rubbish that these are the only blogs worth mentioning, are part of the Westminster bubble culture that makes politicians so aloof from the rest of the country. They think the world revolves around Westminster, which is why they exclude anyone who doesn’t write about the same as ‘boring’ and bereft of any readership.
I’d go as far as saying that left-wing blogs have more diverse and wider audiences because they cover a whole range of different issues and topics, rather than being part of a circle-jerk where the same people read Guido, Dale and CH, and occasionally pop over to other rightwing blogs those three link to.
The apparent influence of the right-wing blogs is that they are consilient with the mainstream media obsession with minutiae of personal interactions of the professional political classes operating within a very narrow consensus. This is in contrast to the much greater ideological and political diversity outside the London media circus, which affects real people, with real lives.
It is of course completely appropriate that Derek Draper and Damien McBride have been hoist by this particular petard. New Labour were instrumental in introducing the politics of media management that sought to hollow out the ideological content and replace it with spin to influence the most fickle and impressionable voters in swing constituencies. I actually do have some sympathy with Derek Draper’s argument that this was a private e-mail conversation, but the mistake Draper made was seeking to get down in the gutter and slug it out with the likes of Paul Staines.
As Laurie Penny argues convincingly on LabourList
Where Draper et al went wrongest of all is in trying to emulate Guido in the first place. Paul Staines, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a frothing right-wing anti-political arserag, a misogynist, a suspicious white stain on the face of the blogosphere. It’s thoroughly shameful that the editor of this site has developed such a schoolboy obsession with his thoroughly mediocre work. All a tussle with anti-political sleaze-machines like Guido was ever going to be was a race to the gutter - a race to the gutter which Guido has won. Well done, Guido.
What breaks my heart about all this is that there are alternative left voices out there, and alternative Labour voices too - plenty of them. The political blogosphere is, in fact, far more than a sleazy sideshow of arrogant white middle-aged men screeching like apes, rolling about in their own faeces and wanking angrily at each other.
It is good that McBride has lost his job, and Draper should follow. Harold Wilson once said famously said that the Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing. Labour on its current course will lose the next election, and if they rely on the wheezes and stunts of tired old yesterday’s men like Derek Draper their defeat will be ignominious.
The left needs to connect with the real concerns of real people, and although the language of moral crusade now rings a little culturally insensitive, the message remains. The electorate respects conviction politicians, and the labour movement project to build a secure and just, better world is a principled and enduring platform that needs to be restored to the heart of left and centre-left politics.
It is time to rebuild trust based upon ideological conviction and honesty, a project that the likes of Derek Draper have no place in.
More on this from Phil at AVPS
Here’s an idea to NL’s bag carrier, Draper, instead of wallowing in the sleaze, smears and gutter how about this shocking idea….criticise your opponents politics not personal life.
Also, I wonder what Draper’s psychotherapy clients think of him now esp. as he supposedly took the piss out of Osborne’s wife and her ‘fragility’….
How not to gain votes and win elections.
This was my take on the debacle.
http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/new-labour-just-how-stupid-can-you-get/
Comment by Louise — 14 April, 2009 @ 1:30 pm
“Guido devoted articles to whether or not Gordon Brown picks his nose.”
No he didn’t. There’s no debate about it. He simply provided ordinary BBC footage from Prime Minister’s Questions showing Gordon Brown picking his nose while sitting next to Tony Blair, and then eating the bogeys.
And that compares to someone on the civil service payroll creating libellous, deliberately damaging, false smears about the mental health of a wife of a Tory politician how exactly?
Comment by Jonny Mac — 14 April, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
So when you say “No, he didn’t”, you mean “yes he did”?
Staines did indeed run with a story of Gordon Brown picking his nose.
Now I know that for a libertarian Paul Staines is curiously litigious, and threatens libel against those who talk about his days in the Federation of Conservative Students, but according to this book available on the web via Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/reader/1852426047?%5Fencoding=UTF8&token=oEJwel%20YmcukiyiHLjv7DnFbiZwkxpTxoF0%2FZrjsTeVa15omSZJ2fA%3D%3D&query=staines&page=107#reader
Staines was involved in a scurrilous publication during the 1980s “British briefing” dedicated to smearing left figures like labour MPs, lawyers and writers; Staines is personally quoted in the book boasting his support for terrorism, with “let’s get guns to the contras”, and “I was enjoying it immensly, I got to go with these guys and fire off AK47s”
as Human Rights Watch describes the contras “the contras were major and systematic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, including by launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants, and mistreating prisoners. ”
Staines was also photographed wearing a pro-UNITA T-shirt alongside a representative of UNITA
Comment by Andy Newman — 14 April, 2009 @ 2:31 pm
No, I mean he didn’t run articles devoted to ‘whether or not’ Brown picks his nose because there can be no debate about it. He ran articles showing the BBC footage of him doing so. And, as I said, then eating the bogeys. During PMQs. While sitting next to the then PM.
Guido, a private individual, shows that Damien McBride, civil servant and intimate of the Prime Minister, created and put forward obscene, libellous smears for anonymous publication.
The Left’s response? Smear Guido. (Source? ‘a book on Amazon’.)
Pathetic.
Comment by Jonny Mac — 14 April, 2009 @ 2:49 pm
Incidentally, I couldn’t care less if you what you say about Guido is true. I wouldn’t care if he’s a fascist, a communist, if he’s murdered his grandmother. First, because I’m not paying his salary, so it’s none of my business, and second and in any event, because what matters is not what he has done, or what he believes, but whether what he says is true.
Comment by Jonny Mac — 14 April, 2009 @ 2:55 pm
“because I’m not paying his salary, so it’s none of my business”
so we should have no social responsibility for anyone unless we are paying them?
the fact that Paul Staines has a past record of far-right activity, including self-confessed support for terrorism and armed insurgency, does have some impact on his repuation as an honest broker intestested only in puncturing the smug conceit of the political classes.
If you were to put the two in the balance - supporting arming the Nicaraguan contras, and giving political support to the fascist UNITA insurgency in Angola, compared with some ill-advised emails by some spin doctors, i know which I think is the worst offence.
But the relevence is direct, that Paul Staines and Iain Dale themsleves trade in political tittle tattle, and the wowrst that can be siad of Derek Draper is that he was foolish enough to follow their path.
Comment by Andy Newman — 14 April, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
’so we should have no social responsibility for anyone unless we are paying them?’
I have no ’social responsibility for’ Guido. I don’t know about you.
Guido and Dale trade in political tittle tattle, as you say. They also come up with some good stories.
What Draper and McBride were involved in was not political tittle tattle, but - as I say again, obscene, libellous smears, including against someone who isn’t even involved in politics (Osborne’s wife).
Let’s say it one more time. Obscene, libellous smears are not the same as political tittle tattle.
In McBride’s case the offence is compounded because he was a government employee. And Draper has clear, close links to the heart of the government and the Labour party (lunch at Chequers etc).
Guido and Dale, on the other hand, are private individuals.
Running guns for Nazis or poking kittens in the eye or whatever you say Guido has done in his youth may or may not be as bad as plotting to smear a political opponent’s wife as mentally ill. But again - even if he did do whatever you say he did, and more besides, it’s irrelevant to what he, as a private individual, says and does on his blog. Trying to play the man, not the ball - or ’smearing’, as we’ve learnt it’s called - is irrelevant and simply doesn’t work in this context.
Comment by Jonny Mac — 14 April, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
You do a nice line in political tittle tattle yourself Andy.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 14 April, 2009 @ 3:53 pm
Surely Draper and McBride didn’t libel anyone, as they didn’t in fact publish the stories? They were discussing privately the possibility of publishing the stories, but that would not be in itself libellous.
As the stories were never in fact published by either Draper or mcBride then what we have is merely ridiculous tittle tatle about something that they might have beenn considering. Now, that schoolboy discussion was stupid, and has damaged the Labour Party, and as such it is not an injustice that mcBride has lost his job, and Draper’s already questionable judgement has ben further exposed,, and it is hard to see why he shoudl continue as editor of labourList.
On the question of the substance of the stories, I have already said that I don’t think this is what labour party supporters should have been doing, and so I doon’t know what your animus is with me on that.
With regard to Staines himself, and to Iain Dale, it is far from irrelevent that they have sought to pose as occupying the moral hugh ground on this question, when they both have a reputation for exactly the sort of tasteless tittle tattle. Inded only last month we see Staines using autism as a form of abuse against Gordon Brown:
http://www.order-order.com/2009/03/how-many-standing-ovations-will/
Comment by Andy Newman — 14 April, 2009 @ 4:06 pm
Can I just clear up one thing about my alleged support for the Contras and Unita. My only shame is that I did not do more for them, raised more money for more guns to fight Soviet Communism.
Never the less we were victorious in the end.
Comment by Guido Fawkes — 14 April, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
Derek Draper in the pooh again, on happy days. He was ‘charming’ enough as NOLS hack in the student days, seems the times change but old ‘window dressing’ Drapper remains the same.
Keep up the good work Derek, the Conservative Party needs you.
Comment by Pete Shield — 14 April, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
Fawkes isn’t worth a second of anyone’s time or thought - I really grudge writing this.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 14 April, 2009 @ 5:09 pm
Draper is the sort of cockweasel that has helped destroy any faith I had remaining in the ‘left’. A total careerist cunt hanging onto anyone and anything that will give him airtime and a fine example of “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. A charlatan of the highest order.
Comment by Ken Barlow — 14 April, 2009 @ 11:04 pm
#13 What, so worse even than Mike Baldwin, Ken?
Comment by Strategist — 15 April, 2009 @ 1:54 am
Why doesn’t someone expose Dolly as the psychobabble fraud that he really is? His claims to be a “qualified” psychotherapist from the University of California [Berkely] carries as much credence as “Dr.” Ian Paisley. His course was at a “college next door” to Berkely and he was “asked to leave” after three years of a five year programme. Furthermore he claims membership of the BACP, yet they denie this.
The man is a fraud and should be exposed as such.
Comment by Roger Smith — 15 April, 2009 @ 11:27 am
“The man is a fraud and should be exposed as such.”
Whether Draper is a ‘psycho-babble fraud’ remains to be seen but the fact he appeared on Jeremy Kyle’s ‘Kyle’s Academy’ around 2 years ago. Now that says it all!
Comment by Louise — 15 April, 2009 @ 12:07 pm