Labour List: Message to Derek Draper, You'll Have To Go

Derek Draper wants to draw a line under Draper-Gate. He wants to re-dedicate himself 100% to the success of Labour List. If he really means that he needs to walk away. A long way away:

The only way to draw a line under this matter is to hand over the nurture of this site to someone else Derek. Perhaps to a collective or cooperative. Perhaps to an established journalist or blogger or communications professional who can help the site achieve its potential as a response to Conservative Home. Specifically for that. Not confused and also trying to batter and better Dale and Fawkes.

You are under-playing your own part in all this. You COMMISSIONED THIS MATERIAL. You asked for hard-hitting gossip. Specifically to be included in a deniable arms length site designed to be as more or less as sleazy as Fawkes. Supposedly minus the off-colour sexism, homophobia, mental health smears that feature there.

And it is also hard to escape the conclusion that the email account you used for this activity was either not secure or that you yourself copied this to someone who passed it to Fawkes. Assume that Fawkes has every email that ever passed through this account. Are you quite sure that the story that this initiative was spiked back in January will stand close inspection?

YOU, Derek Draper, caused this content to be created. Proactively seeking it and proactively cheering it on. And your own lack of care also may have caused it to reach Fawkes.

Time to go Derek. Give Labour List a chance to recover from this and become the resource that was envisaged. And can you please also stop accepting invitations to be a talking head on behalf of the grass roots? We didn't pick you for that role. It is literally speaking arrogant to take it on.

Grappling monsters and staring into the abyss has brought us to this sorry pass. There is no need to drag Labour List and Labour blogging down. The specific offenders and offences need to be isolated.