Philip Gould (ePub)

The death of Philip Gould, former Labour Party Communications Director, in 2011 deprived Britain of one of its most acute and well-respected political minds. In this book his friends and colleagues including David Miliband and Lord Mandelson discuss his life from his early years in the Labour Party to his ultimately doomed fight against cancer.One of the architects of New Labour, Lord Gould played a crucial role in helping former Prime Minister Tony Blair to three election victories. He was strategy and polling adviser to the party in the general elections of 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005 and was one of the key figures of the modern communications revolution inside the Labour Party of the 1980s, which resulted in the emergence of New Labour. Lord Gould battled for three years against oesophageal cancer and in September 2011 was told he would not survive. In his last months, he continued to speak openly and honestly, both about politics and his illness and fought strongly for ideals he believed in.Elections expert, Dennis Kavanagh, brings together a stellar cast of contributors including Georgia Gould, Alastair Campbell, Patricia Hewitt, Peter Mandelson, David Miliband, James Purnell, Danny Finkelstein, Peter Hyman, Andrew Cooper, Stan Greenberg and James Harding to consider Philip Gould's legacy, both in life and politics.