Neale Coleman
CBE
Director of Policy of the Labour Party
Preceded byTorsten Bell
Succeeded byAndrew Fischer
Personal details
Born
Dennis Neale Coleman

November 1953
NationalityBritish
Political partyLabour
RelationsIain Coleman (brother)
ParentCllr Pam Coleman
Alma materUniversity of Oxford
OccupationPolitician

Neale Coleman is a British Labour politician. He is a former senior adviser to Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party,[1] and was a close aide to Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London.

Early life and education

His mother was a former Labour councillor in Barnet and a former Mayor of the borough. His brother is Iain Coleman, the former Labour Leader and Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham Council and Labour Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham from 1997 to 2005.

Coleman read Greats at Oxford and graduated with a First.[1]

Career

He joined the Civil Service and became a housing officer in Haringey.[2] In 1982, he was elected as a Westminster City councillor for Maida Vale ward, representing the Labour Party. As a Westminster councillor, he helped reveal the Westminster cemeteries scandal. He lost his seat in 1990. Coleman ran again in 1994, but was unsuccessful.[3]

In 2000, he was appointed Senior Policy Adviser "Best Value" to Mayor of London Ken Livingstone following his election.[4] He was reported to be one of Livingstone's closest advisors, enjoying "virtually immediate access to the mayor".[5] After Livingstone's re-election in 2004, Coleman's salary was raised to £111,000 a year; higher than that of the mayor himself.[6] Coleman was the only senior adviser to continue serving under Livingstone's successor Boris Johnson, who referred to him as "Comrade Coleman".[7]

Coleman was appointed by Jeremy Corbyn to be the Labour Party's Director of Policy following Corbyn's victory in the Labour Party leadership election.[8] Alongside fellow former Livingstone aide, Simon Fletcher, Coleman was dubbed one of the "Mensheviks" in Corbyn's inner circle.[9] He resigned in January 2016[10] following reports of disagreements with Corbyn's head of strategy and communications Seumas Milne and Andrew Fisher, the leader’s policy adviser.[11]

In 2016, he was appointed as an adviser to London Mayor Sadiq Khan's transition team, but resigned just three weeks into the job following reports that Khan was unwilling to extend Coleman's contract beyond the three-month transition period.[12]

In 2022, Coleman was appointed to chair Westminster City Council's Future of Westminster Commission.[13] The commission includes Coleman's fellow former Westminster City Labour councillors Karen Buck (now the MP for Westminster North, a constituency in the borough) and Jackie Rosenberg.[14][15]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Neale Coleman, the new member of Jeremy Corbyn's inner circle". BBC News. 2015-09-17. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  2. ^ Hosken, Andrew (2007). Nothing Like a Dame. Granta. p. 166. ISBN 978-1-86207-922-9.
  3. ^ Boothroyd, David (2017-05-18). "Maida Vale Ward 1964-". Westminster City Council Election Results. Archived from the original on 18 May 2017. Retrieved 2022-08-11.
  4. ^ "Advisers and Cabinet Members". Mayor's Question Time. 2000-11-08. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  5. ^ Travers, Tony (2004). The politics of London : governing an ungovernable city. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 87. ISBN 1-4039-4013-4. OCLC 57335670.
  6. ^ "Livingstone aides earn £111,000". the Guardian. 2004-06-21. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  7. ^ Pitel, Laura. "New spin doctor is a Boris aide called Comrade Coleman". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  8. ^ "Neale Coleman announced as Labour's Director of Policy and Rebuttal". LabourList. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  9. ^ "The meaning of Corbynism". New Statesman. 2018-03-05. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  10. ^ "Neale Coleman 'quit Corbyn role after being sidelined in policy talks'". The Guardian. 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  11. ^ "Jeremy Corbyn's policy chief Neale Coleman quits". Financial Times. 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  12. ^ Lydall, Pippa Crerar, Ross (2016-05-27). "Sadiq dealt blow as housing expert walks away from his City Hall team". Evening Standard. Retrieved 2022-07-12.((cite web)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ Hill, Dave (2022-07-11). "Westminster: Labour unveils commission to advise on policies for a 'fairer city'". OnLondon. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  14. ^ "Future of Westminster Commission: Membership" (PDF). Westminster City Council. 2022-07-11. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  15. ^ "Future of Westminster Commission" (PDF). Westminster City Council. 2022-07-11. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
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