Derek Draper - quack in a spin

(From Feb 2009)

You may remember that the BBC disgracefully employed the services of a quack psychoanalyst who, overcome with delusions of competence, blurted out inappropriate, unfounded and irresponsible comments on the mental health of the prime minister, Gordon Brown.

Now it turns out that the Labour Party are employing the services of a quack psychoanalyst of their own, former spin doctor Derek Draper, with all the problems that come with quacks. Such as honesty over qualifications.

Derek Draper in a recent Guardian profile claimed to have a MA in Clinical Psychology from Berkeley, University of California. Guido Fawkes has been doing some digging and found out that Mr Draper has not been entirely honest. It turns out that Berkeley have no record of Derek Draper and, as The Guardian report today, he actually received his degree from a private institution, the Wright Institute, which does not offer full time degrees, which no longer runs a full time MA, and has no affiliation with Berkeley, merely sharing a neighbourhood.

Derek Draper admits that while the Wright Institute have no academic connection with Berkeley “I did have the use of the facilities at the Berkeley campus.”, but his use of the gents at Berkeley has not prevented him from implying that he studied there on his website.

Read the complete post at Gimpy's Blog.