Derek Draper’s larger than life Labour character will certainly not be forgotten
In the Blair and Brown years, the irrepressible Derek Draper was one of Westminster’s best known and most colourful characters.
Affectionately known as “Dolly”, he was a cheerful extrovert who loved being at the centre of intrigue and gossip and was prone to boasting about his own importance.
To be fair, he was indeed very much an insider in the New Labour project that catapulted Tony Blair into power in the landslide election victory in 1997.
He was sociable, gregarious and because he worked for and was an ally of Peter Mandelson he was almost a Blairite before Blair.
He was fun, had a cheeky grin and an easy manner, and enjoyed the company and camaraderie of MPs and journalists in Westminster.
He was also very good at his job, colleagues acknowledged, and passionate about Labour winning the 1997 election after 18 years in opposition.
But it was his occasional boasting – and his misfortune in being unwittingly dragged into plotting – that landed him in two embarrassing New Labour scandals.
The first was when he was caught out bragging about how important and well connected he was. The second was over a link to a plot to smear Tory politicians.
Part of Dolly’s colourful reputation came from the fact that he worked for Mandelson, the “Prince of Darkness”, during Mandy’s ascent from spin doctor to government minister.
Draper faced criticism over his infamous quote
That wasn’t Draper’s first job in politics, however.
In fact, he worked for Nick Brown, when “Newcastle Brown” – the Tyneside MP who later became chief whip under four Labour leaders – was a shadow minister.
He went to work for Mandelson when he became the MP for Hartlepool in 1992 and – along with the equally irrepressible Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown‘s legendary spin doctor – was one of Westminster’s most high-profile insiders.
‘I am intimate with every one of them’
But Draper left Westminster a year before the Blair landslide and became a political lobbyist. And that was when his boasting landed him in trouble.
In 1998, in a scandal that became known as “Lobbygate”, he told an undercover reporter from The Observer how important and influential he was.
“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,” he said in a memorable quote.
He drew criticism. Even Mandelson said at the time: “He gets above himself. But now he has been cut down to size and I think probably he will learn a very hard lesson from what has happened.”
But he landed in more trouble in 2009 when The Daily Telegraph revealed that Brown’s then spin doctor, Damian McBride, had sent him emails about a plot to smear Tory politicians including David Cameron, George Osborne and Nadine Dorries.
It was reported that Draper, who by now had set up the LabourList website, described the plan as “brilliant” in an email to McBride.
Now spin doctor for the shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry, McBride immediately quit and prime minister Brown was forced to issue a grovelling apology.
A few weeks later, a contrite Draper quit LabourList and said: “I regret ever receiving the infamous email and I regret my stupid, hasty reply. I should have said straight away that the idea was wrong.”
After his career change, training as a psychotherapist, Dolly moved on, although he would still turn up to social events with Labour Party pals, such as the Tribune magazine Christmas party.
His illness has been a terrible shock to all who knew this larger-than-life character who was such amusing and engaging company. Gone, but certainly not forgotten.
Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
Electrocuted on their genitals and mouths sewn up: Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails
Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX reportedly hired former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to advise it over the federal probe that resulted in the firm pleading guilty to several violations and agreeing to pay $505 million in fines and penalties.
Cuomo, a New York-registered attorney, advised OKX on legal issues stemming from the probe sometime after August 2021 when he resigned as New York overnor, Bloomberg reported on April 2, citing people familiar with the matter.
“He spoke with company executives regularly and counseled them on how to respond to the criminal investigation,” Bloomberg said.
The Seychelles-based firm pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business in violation of US Anti-Money Laundering laws on Feb. 24 and agreed to pay $84 million worth of penalties while forfeiting $421 million worth of fees earned from mostly institutional clients.
The breaches occurred from 2018 to 2024 despite OKX having an official policy preventing US persons from transacting on its crypto exchange since 2017, the Department of Justice noted at the time.
A spokesperson for Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, told Bloomberg that Cuomo has been providing private legal services representing individuals and corporations on a variety of matters since resigning as New York governor.
“He has not represented clients before a New York city or state agency and routinely recommends former colleagues for positions,” Azzopardi added.
OKX reportedly wasn’t willing to comment on its relationships with outside firms.
Cuomo also influenced OKX to make executive appointments: Bloomberg
Cuomo, who is now running for mayor of New York City, also advised OKX to appoint his friend US Attorney Linda Lacewell to OKX’s board of directors, Bloomberg said.
Lacewell, a former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, was added to the board in 2024 and was named OKX’s new chief legal officer on April 1, according to a recent company statement.
Source: Linda Lacewell
Related: New York bill aims to protect crypto investors from memecoin rug pulls
After the investigation concluded, OKX said it would seek out a compliance consultant to remedy the issues stemming from the federal probe and bolster its regulatory compliance program.
“Our vision is to make OKX the gold standard of global compliance at scale across different markets and their respective regulatory bodies,” OKX CEO Star Xu said in a Feb. 24 X post.
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United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
The reciprocal levies on will be approximately half of what trading partners charge for US imports, Trump said. For example, China currently has a tariff of 67% on US imports, so US reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods will be 34%. Trump also announced a standard 25% tariff on all automobile imports.
Trump told the media that tariffs would return the country to economic prosperity seen in previous centuries:
“From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation. The United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been. So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s, they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting.”
“Then, in 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying,” Trump said.
Full breakdown of reciprocal tariffs by country. Source: Cointelegraph
Trump presented the tariffs through the lens of economic protectionism and hinted at returning to the economic policies of the 19th century by using them to replace the income tax.
Related: Bitcoin rally to $88.5K obliterates bears as spot volumes soar — Will a tariff war stop the party?
Trump proposes eliminating federal income tax and replacing it with tariff revenue
Trump proposed the idea of abolishing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and funding the federal government exclusively through trade tariffs while still on the campaign trail in October 2024.
According to accounting automation company Dancing Numbers, Trump’s plan could save each American taxpayer $134,809-$325,561 in taxes throughout their lives.
US President Donald Trump addresses the media about reciprocal trade tariffs at the April 2 press event. Source: Fox 4 Dallas
The higher range of the tax savings estimate will only occur if other wage-based taxes are eliminated at the state and municipal levels.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who assumed office in February, also voiced support for replacing the IRS with the “External Revenue Service.”
Lutnick said that the US government cannot balance a budget yet consistently demands more from its citizens every year. Tariffs will also protect American workers and strengthen the US economy, he said.
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