He was chairman of the Liberal Democrat General Election campaign during the 2010 United Kingdom general election and director of the YES!

[1] He had previously been appointed as Nick Clegg's advisor on strategic communications in January 2008.

[2] He is also a former joint managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi UK, founder and director of Sharkey Associates Ltd. and a trustee and honorary treasurer of the Hansard Society.

[3] He was created a Life Peer as Baron Sharkey, of Niton Undercliff in the County of the Isle of Wight on 20 December 2010.

[4] Lord Sharkey put forward the so-called Alan Turing law, by which men who had been convicted under legislation that outlawed homosexual acts would be pardoned.