Philip Gould

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Person.png Philip Gould   Companies HouseRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(PR consultant, advertising executive)
Philip Gould.jpg
Born30 March 1950
Died6 November 2011 (Age 61)
Royal Marsden Hospital
Cause of death
cancer?
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Sussex, London School of Economics
Children2
SpouseGail Rebuck
Member ofGeorgetown Leadership Seminar/1986
PartyLabour Party
UK political adviser and advertising executive who "modernised" the Labour Party" under Tony Blair. Attended the 2003 Bilderberg

Philip Gould, Baron Gould of Brookwood was a British political consultant, and advertising executive. Although not as well known as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or Peter Mandelson, Gould was "pivotal" to the creation of New Labour with the help of US advisors.[1][2][3] He attended the 2003 Bilderberg meeting.

Early life and education

Gould grew up in Woking, his father was a headmaster. Leaving school with only one O-level, he went on to study at East London College, based in Toynbee Hall.[4] He subsequently won a place at the University of Sussex in 1971 to study politics, graduating in 1974.[5]

Gould went to the London School of Economics (LSE) to study for an MSc in the history of political thought, where he was taught by the political scientist Michael Oakeshott. Later he returned to the LSE to teach a course in Modern Campaigning Politics.[6]

Career

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.[7][8]

Involved in 'modernising' the party's image, Gould was particularly connected with Tony Blair and New Labour. The Daily Telegraph said Gould’s expertise and influence “was his replacement of crude opinion polling with American-style political focus groups”.[9]

During the 1992 US presidential election, Gould was with the successful Clinton campaign. But when he returned to the UK and started to argue privately and publicly for the "Clintonisation" of Labour, he was told by Labour leader John Smith that he was being disruptive. Gould was frozen out by the leader's office, but two of the party's most senior figures were much more receptive to his ideas – Gordon Brown, the shadow chancellor, and the home affairs spokesman, Tony Blair. After John Smith's "sudden death" in 1994, Gould's world changed forever, where he saw the opportunity to finally to bring about a truly radical transformation of the party, supporting the ascent of Blair.[4]

No sooner was Tony Blair installed in Downing Street in 1997 than Gould was working on a strategy for keeping him there. He set up a new transatlantic agency with two Clinton advisers, Stan Greenberg and James Carville for that purpose[4][10]

In 2007, he assumed a non-executive director role at Freud Communications, founded by Matthew Freud in 1985.[11]

He sat on the board of Pepsi.[11]


 

Event Participated in

EventStartEndLocation(s)Description
Bilderberg/200315 May 200318 May 2003France
Versailles
The 51st Bilderberg, in Versailles, France
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References