Derek Draper: the man he was before his tragic Covid battle

"Rest gently and peacefully now Derek, my love, I was so lucky to have you in my life.”

Kate Garraway shared this heartbreaking tribute to her husband Derek Draper, who passed away on Friday morning, nearly four years after he was first diagnosed with Covid-19.

In an Instagram post on January 5, the Good Morning Britain presenter Garraway, said: “I’m sad to have to tell you all that my darling husband Derek has passed away.

“As some of you may know he has been critically ill following a cardiac arrest in early December which, because of the damage inflicted by Covid in March 2020, led to further complications.

“Derek was surrounded by his family in his final days and I was by his side holding his hand throughout the last long hours and when he passed.”

She added: “Sending so much love and thanks to all of you who have so generously given our family so much support. Rest gently and peacefully now Derek, my love, I was so lucky to have you in my life.”

After falling into a coma and being put on a ventilator, Draper had spent 13 months in hospital – making him Britain’s longest-suffering coronavirus victim.

He started out as a Labour Party political lobbyist and spin-doctor, but the "Lobbygate" scandal saw him step away from the political limelight and retrain as a psychotherapist.

Tributes have poured in from the likes of Sir Tony Blair, Sir Elton John, Alistair Campbell, Lorraine Kelly and Gordon Brown, describing him as "very special" and a "huge character".

While Draper's extraordinary battle with coronavirus had been the media's main focus in the last few years of his life, it was his long career in politics and almost two decades long fairytale romance with Garraway for which he is primarily known.

Draper, who was from Chorley in Lancashire, was a Labour Party lobbyist for almost a decade and a prominent figure within New Labour. 

While studying at Manchester University, Draper had his first unlikely brush with Labour Party politics, after letting Ken Livingstone have a sit down in his flat, after the former London Mayor missed his train. 

“[Livingstone] still tells the story of when he came to speak to Manchester University Labour Club and missed his train, resulting in a trip to my student flat for a cup of tea — where, in pride of place on my wall, was a big poster of Roy Hattersley,” Draper wrote in the New Statesman in 1999. 

At around this time, Draper first met author and journalist Charlotte Raven, who was also studying at Manchester and a Labour Party activist, and the pair went on to date. 

He began his political career in 1990, when he became the constituency secretary for Labour MP Nick Brown.

Two years later, he went on to work as a researcher for famed spin doctor Peter Mandelson, before becoming the director of lobbying firm GPC Market Access in 1996. 

It was while working at GPC that Mr Draper was involved in the “Lobbygate” scandal that would ultimately lead to his exit from politics.

In one of the first sleaze scandals to hit Tony Blair’s administration, Draper was caught on tape boasting to an undercover journalist of his ability to sell access to government ministers.

He reportedly said: “There are 17 people who count in this government, and to say I am intimate with all of them is the understatement of the century.”

Following his involvement in the "Lobbygate" scandal, Draper was sacked from his role as a columnist at the Daily Express and generally exiled by Labour insiders. 

In an article for the New Statesman, Draper wrote that he suffered from bouts of clinical depression in the Nineties, and sought therapy to help him cope. 

He then retrained as a psychotherapist, but returned to the Labour spotlight in 2008 as the head of the website LabourList, a news website supportive of, but independent of, the Labour Party. 

The following year, he was forced to step down as editor after email correspondence between him and Damian McBride, one of Gordon Brown’s key aides, was leaked.

In the emails, McBride suggested a campaign of unfounded personal smears against senior Conservatives on a new blog called RedRag, which Draper praised as “absolutely, totally brilliant”.

In a resignation statement released to the Guardian, Draper acknowledged that his continued presence at LabourList – which was originally set up to discuss serious policy ideas – was detracting from the website.

“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,” he said.

“I do ask people to remember that its contents were never published by me, or anyone else, involved in the Labour Party and they would never have seen the light of day were it not for someone hacking into my emails and placing them into the public domain.

“Because of that, a silly idea ultimately destined for the trash can became a national scandal.”

After leaving politics, Draper went on to become chief executive of a leadership consultancy, compiling weekly emails summarising the best content for business and HR leaders.

He wrote an occasional column for the Mail on Sunday newspaper on psychotherapy issues, and is also the author of two books, Blair's 100 Days and Life Support. In 2019 he announced he was resigning his Labour Party membership. 

The couple first met back in 2004, after being introduced by their mutual friend and then political editor of GMTV, Gloria De Piero.

“We met at the home of Carlo Romano [of GMTV]. He thought we were meeting for a blind date, whereas I didn’t have a clue. We got on really well and chatted through the night. But if I’d have known we were set up I’d have been very reluctant to go along,” she told the Mirror in 2006.

Speaking to The Times, she added: “Derek arrived thinking it was a date and that I was being incredibly cool by ignoring him.”

Derek, meanwhile, said: “During dinner I realised how fiercely intelligent she is. She has this way of listening to arguments, undermining them, adding something, and summing up in such a clever, undemanding manner.”

But when she did agree to go on a formal date, things didn’t quite go to plan. 

“He asked me out, but the day of our date called to say he had a clash,” she said. 

“He’d promised to serve wine at an amateur watercolour painting exhibition at his church. I really thought it was a wind-up. But I turned up and he was indeed serving wine to the congregation in a salmon-pink jumper.”

​​Derek thought he might have ruined his chances, but it soon became clear that they both had feelings for each other. 

From there, the relationship took off very quickly. The following year, Draper proposed while the couple were on holiday in Egypt. 

“I was ready to settle down by then and it all happened fast, but I was aware that she was 36 and I didn’t want to mess her around because I knew she wanted kids,” Draper told the Mirror. “But it wasn’t all logical — I’d fallen very much in love with her — although we’d already worked out that we have always had the same views about what we wanted a home to be.”