‘Derek Draper – or ‘Dolly’ as I knew him – was the life and soul of the occasion’

I don’t understand how Derek Draper received the nickname “Dolly.”

But that was all the time how we greeted him within the bars and eating places of Westminster that have been his pure stamping floor. “Hello Dolly!” was normally the beginning of a full of life trade of views about New Labour, of which he was a dedicated and articulate champion.

I not often agreed with him, however he was all the time enjoyable to joust with. Laughter was by no means far-off, when his impish grin broke right into a smile. And the comprehensive-educated boy from Chorley made good, working for MPs like former Chief Whip Nick Brown and Peter Mandelson earlier than shifting into lobbying.

That didn’t go well with him as a lot because the tough and tumble of occasion politics. He bragged: “There are 17 people who count. And to say I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of the century.” Not fairly, however it was definitely the exaggeration of the last decade, a attribute self-promotion. If accused of trying big-headed, he laughed if off by saying “it’s not a crime”.

The essential factor was, he was Labour by means of and thru, and he needed us to win, full cease. In a uncommon tribute, Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown’s press secretary and really a lot within the different Labour camp, as soon as informed me: “He was great company and he was bloody good at his job. And he was relentless in wanting to see Labour elected.”

But it’s the conviviality that survives. I can hear Dolly now, voice raised, hair swept again, head tilted, grinning and roaring: “You can’t really believe that, Paul!” He was a determine from Shakespeare, not fairly Falstaff, however getting there, a raffish, life-and-soul-of-the-party man.

He was additionally a person of his time, when New Labour was as a lot a lifestyle as a political marketing campaign to influence the world that it was prepared for Tony Blair.

We watched with rising worry because the lengthy finger of Covid-19 first touched him on the outbreak of the pandemic, and progressively weakened a person who had been so stuffed with joie de vivre. Of all of the victims of this horrible illness, he appeared the almost definitely to beat its debilitating course, however it wasn’t to be. Dolly will likely be remembered with affection wherever politicos of his era collect.