OFF LIFE SUPPORT
Given how much of his media coverage in recent years has been as Kate garraway husband derek draper, it can be easy to forget Derek Draper was a high-profile political nuisance for years. He first stepped into the spotlight at the centre of the Lobbygate scandal, one of the earliest scandals of the Blair government wherein Draper was caught boasting about the number of ministers in the palm of his hand. He quit his lobbyist position after the fallout, but resurfaced on the political scene a decade later as founder of blog LabourList. He stepped down months later when it emerged that he was concocting fabricated sex scandals to tar leading Tories with, as if there wasn’t already a lifetime’s supply of legitimate rope to hang them with.
All in all he was a git, but his was an end we wouldn’t wish on anyone (bar Putin). He was hit with COVID in the early months of the pandemic, and was the most severe case in the UK to not immediately die of it. Instead he limped on for four years as a barely-conscious husk, and a massive heart attack in December has finished him aged 56. His wife’s Linda Nolan-esque milking of every little health update meant he wasn’t quite the consensus gimme that Gary Burgess or Gianluca Vialli were, but he was still massively popular and the first Drop 40 faller. Day in the Death and The Sound of the Underground were among those to strike while the iron was hot with a joker pick, as did I, continuing a perfect January hit streak for your co-host.
Derek Draper
15 August 1967 – 3 January 2024, aged 56
87 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 + 40 = 12 POINTS, 🃏 (x11) 24 POINTS)