He was a Labour donor and Parliamentary candidate, but he left the party after a series of disputes with leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Foster is Jewish;[2] his grandfather was in the Dachau concentration camp, but was released when he gave up his factories and he moved to Palestine.
[7] As co-chair of International Creative Management in London from 1986 to December 1997,[6] Foster was agent for TV and radio presenter Chris Evans[8] and actors Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant, among others.
[6] Foster became CEO of Evans' Ginger TV in January 1998, then left suddenly in September 1998 (receiving £1.1 million,[10] reported by Broadcast as an acrimonious departure)[8] to become a drama producer.
[20] In 2013, Foster sold his stakes in his companies The Rights House and PFD[21] when he decided to stop being an agent.
[23] In September 2012, Foster founded a charity, Creative Access, with Josie Dobrin to help ethnic minorities into internships,[21] working with recruitment companies SEO London and New Deal of the Mind.
[4] He was selected in January 2014 to be the Labour candidate for Camborne and Redruth at the 2015 general election,[21] on a platform of creating jobs in Cornwall.
[29] After being selected, Foster tossed his phone across a table during the filming of Sunday Politics, hitting Conservative MP Sheryll Murray in the wrist; he apologised and said it was not deliberate.
[33] Foster was suspended from Labour in September 2016 after he called supporters of Corbyn "Sturm Abteilung (stormtroopers)" in an article in the Mail on Sunday.
[36][37] He subsequently stood against Corbyn in the June 2017 general election in Islington North,[38] with the slogan "Labour for the Common Good".
"[23] He has said when he was an agent he broke his finger by tapping on a table to make a point, and saw a psychiatrist, Steve Peters, to help with his temper.