Neale Coleman is a British

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

politician. He is a former senior adviser to

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...

as Leader of the Labour Party, and was a close aide to

Ken Livingstone Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office i ...

Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum, Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first Directly elected may ...

Early life and education

His mother was a former

councillor in

Barnet Barnet may refer to: People *Barnet (surname) * Barnet (given name) Places United Kingdom *Chipping Barnet or High Barnet, commonly known as Barnet, one of three focal towns of the borough below. *East Barnet, a district of the borough below; an ...

and a former Mayor of the borough. His brother is

Iain Coleman Iain Coleman (born 18 January 1958) was the Labour Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham in London from 1997 to 2005. He was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham for Shepherd's Bush Green ward in Ma ...

, the former Labour Leader and Mayor of

Hammersmith and Fulham Council Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. Hammersmith and Fu ...

and

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

Hammersmith and Fulham The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham () is a London borough in West London and which also forms part of Inner London. The borough was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham. The borou ...

from 1997 to 2005. Coleman read Greats at

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and graduated with a First.

Career

He joined the Civil Service and became a housing officer in

Haringey The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) is a London borough in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of ...

. In

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street bridges, 14th Street Bridge in ...

, he was elected as a

Westminster City The City of Westminster is a city and borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of central Greater London, including most of the West End. ...

councillor for Maida Vale ward, representing the Labour Party. As a Westminster councillor, he helped reveal the

Westminster cemeteries scandal The Westminster cemeteries scandal was a British political scandal which began in January 1987 when Westminster City Council (WCC) sold three cemeteries, three lodges, one flat, a crematorium and over of prime development land in London for a tot ...

. He lost his seat in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

. Coleman ran again in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

, but was unsuccessful. In 2000, he was appointed Senior Policy Adviser "Best Value" to

following his

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

. He was reported to be one of Livingstone's closest advisors, enjoying "virtually immediate access to the mayor". After Livingstone's re-election in 2004, Coleman's salary was raised to £111,000 a year; higher than that of the mayor himself. Coleman was the only senior adviser to continue serving under Livingstone's successor

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

, who referred to him as "Comrade Coleman". 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. Alongside fellow former Livingstone aide, Simon Fletcher, Coleman was dubbed one of the "Mensheviks" in Corbyn's inner circle. He resigned in January 2016 following reports of disagreements with Corbyn's head of strategy and communications

Seumas Milne Seumas Patrick Charles Milne (born 5 September 1958)Winchester College: A Register. Edited by P.S.W.K. McClure and R.P. Stevens, on behalf of the Wardens and Fellows of Winchester College. 7th edition, 2014. pp. 582 (Short Half 1971 list heading) ...

and

Andrew Fisher Andrew Fisher (29 August 186222 October 1928) was an Australian politician who served three terms as prime minister of Australia – from 1908 to 1909, from 1910 to 1913, and from 1914 to 1915. He was the leader of the Australian Labor Party ...

, the leader’s policy adviser. In 2016, he was appointed as an adviser to London Mayor

Sadiq Khan Sadiq Aman Khan (; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from 2005 until 2016. A member of the Labour Party, Khan is on the party's sof ...

'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. In 2022, Coleman was appointed to chair

Westminster City Council Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors. The council is currently composed of 31 Labour Party members and 23 Cons ...

's Future of Westminster Commission. The commission includes Coleman's fellow former

Labour councillors

Karen Buck Karen Patricia Buck (born 30 August 1958) is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Westminster North, previously Regent's Park and Kensington North, since 1997. A member of the Labour Party, she was Parliamentary Unde ...

(now the MP for Westminster North, a constituency in the borough) and Jackie Rosenberg.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, Neale 1953 births Living people Labour Party (UK) councillors Councillors in the City of Westminster Alumni of the University of Oxford 21st-century British politicians 20th-century British politicians

Early life and education

Career

See also

References