Apologies if this is a bit disjointed folks but it’s hella early and I’m insomniac and have fallen down a rabbit hole. I started to look into a guy called Derek Draper who was the husband of a high profile Tv talking head called Kate Garraway. He reportedly became very ill with Covid early in the whole thing and it was all over the media. For our US frens, when the Covid hysteria began a Kate Garraway was instrumental in setting the media narrative - her incessant publicity of her husband Derek Draper’s disastrous COVID illness was all over the place driving the messaging that Covid was bad news etc etc. She was never off the TV and it was parroted endlessly by the media to drive the hysteria. Honestly it was unrelenting at the time and she was one for the main faces driving the media narrative. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12930199/derek-draper-kate-garraway-life-pictures-love-story.html
He was reportedly ill and hospitalized for a long time then when he was finally discharged home she continued to allow filming of him when he was bed bound etc etc. Again continuing to drive the message.
At the time I kinda tuned it out because I dismissed it as the propaganda it was and I wrongly thought he was a TV producer.
Draper has now died. I glanced at some comments on X and was surprised to see he was a former political operative. I’d never heard of this so I googled and have been digging ever since. I was surprised to find out that , just as Epstein lists are blowing up and Peter Mandelson (Tony Blair’s former right hand man) is being outed as a pedo swamp creature, that Drapers background was actually as a left wing political operative and as a very close associate of Mandelson and former MP Nick Brown. He was implicated in 2 fairly big scandals - conspiring to plant false scandal:smears about Conservative MPs and also selling access to government ministers in the Blair/Labour government - dubbed Lobbygate. His prominent quote from that scandal really peaked my interest
“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.”
So Mandelson has been exposed on the Epsteins papers and iirc his boss Tony Blair was on the flight lists but the fact that Draper was so close to Nick Brown is VERY interesting and has activated my almonds. Nick Brown was a British Labour MP. He recently resigned from the party following a long term suspension, the reason for which has never been disclosed. No one was allowed to know what he was accused of, and his suspension stipulated he was not allowed on House Of Commons property at all. Seriously the party have NEVER said what the issue was that led to his suspension which went on for 16 months iirc before he announced he would be stepping down at the general election?? There is just an allusion to an event that took place 25yrs ago as the reason for his suspension. Time wise that would be around 1998 which is when Draper was busted selling access to MPs ? Or was it something else? I wonder if drapers “illness” was clean up on aisle 5? Brown was removed because of something from 25yrs ago which gives with the time Draper was active in the government and Labour Party. Maybe he was involved in the Nick Brown issue and could have been a witness or co conspirator? Was he ever ill or was he a failed attempt to remove a potential witness? What about his comment about 17 people who count? I’m down a rabbit hole here frens. Send snacks ⛏️
Interesting, OP, thanks. BTW it's not "peaked my interest" but "piqued".
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pique-curiosity-interest-etc
I know 🤣 auto correct struck I guess and I just didn’t get round to amending it