Neale Coleman announced as Labour’s Director of Policy and Rebuttal

Update: Kevin Slocombe has been appointed as the press spokesperson for Jeremy Corbyn. Slocombe has worked as head of communications at the Communication Workers Union for the past 10 years.

Neale Coleman has been appointed as Labour’s Executive Director of Policy and Rebuttal.

Under Ed Miliband the post was filled by Torsten Bell.

Corbyn was elected as Labour leader on Saturday with 59.5% of the vote, on Sunday evening he began to put together his shadow cabinet which was announced in full on Monday. 

Coleman has been a Labour party member for 36 years and between 1982 and 1990 he was Deputy Leader of the Westminster Council Labour Group. While there he played a key role in exposing the “Homes for Votes” scandal, where Westminster Council sold off council homes to potential Conservative voters.

He then worked in the Civil Service and was then a senior policy advisors to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London. He has also worked with current London Mayor Boris Johnson as an advisor on Tottenham and on Olympic and Paralympic legacy. Coleman was co-chair of the Olympic Delivery Committee; he was heavily involved in the capital’s successful Olympic and Paralympic Games bid in 2003 and shared responsibility for the Games delivery. Coleman helped to outline the planning consent for the Olympic Park in Stratford.

He has worked for the Greater London Assembly for 12 years and has been heavily involved in regeneration projects.

John Mann MP for Bassetlaw has praised this decision: