Derek William Draper (born 15 August 1967) is an English former lobbyist. As a political advisor he was involved in two political scandals, "Lobbygate" in 1998, and again in 2009 while Draper was editor of the LabourList website. He has worked as a psychotherapist. He is the author of two books, Blair's 100 Days and Life Support. Draper has had an unusually serious case of long COVID; he was hospitalised in March 2020, suffering from COVID-19, and remained in hospital for a year. Six months after returning to his home, he remains seriously incapacitated as of April 2022. Career Born in Chorley, Lancashire, Draper was educated at Southlands High School until 1984. He later attended Runshaw College in Leyland and the University of Manchester. While at the university, Draper provided hospitality for Ken Livingstone, who had missed his train after a Labour Club meeting. Livingstone was reportedly astonished to find displayed in Draper's student room a large poster of Labour Party deputy leader, Roy Hattersley. At around this time, he first met Charlotte Raven, with whom he was later involved romantically. Draper began his political career in 1990, when he became the constituency secretary for Nick Brown. In 1992, he left this job and went to work as a researcher for the MP for Hartlepool, Peter Mandelson. In 1996, he became a director of a lobbying firm called GPC Market Access, and was employed by them until early 1999. While working at GPC Market Access, he set up the New Labour organisation Progress with Liam Byrne. During the late 1990s, Draper worked as the Political Editor of the Modern Review, was briefly a columnist for the Daily Express, and a presenter on Talk Radio UK. "Lobbygate" In 1998, while still working as a director at GPC Market Access, Draper was caught on tape, with Jonathan Mendelsohn, boasting to Greg Palast – an undercover reporter from The Observer posing as a businessman – about how they could sell access to government ministers and create tax breaks for their clients. When the press got hold of the story, they dubbed it "Lobbygate". On the recording, Draper said that "there are 17 people who count in this government ... [to] say I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of the century." Palast also wrote that Draper said, regarding his motivation: "I just want to stuff my bank account at