Appointed by Director of Communications Peter Mandelson, he was strategy and polling adviser to the Labour Party in the general elections of 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005.

[1][4] Leaving school with only one O-level, he went on to study at East London College, based in Toynbee Hall, where he gained four A-levels.

[6] In 1992, he planned the Sheffield Rally for the Labour Party,[4] eight days before its loss of the 1992 general election.

[8][9] In 2007, he assumed a non-executive director role at Freud Communications,[10] the firm of Blair's former diary secretary, Kate Garvey.

Preceding an interview with Andrew Marr on a Sunday morning BBC TV show, 18 September 2011, it was revealed that his treatment for three-times recurring cancer of the oesophagus had been unsuccessful.