Neal Lawson is a political commentator in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

He was born on the 21st March 1963 in Lewisham

Lewisham

Lewisham is a district in South London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...

 and brought up in 1960s/70s in Bexleyheath

Bexleyheath

Bexleyheath is a main suburban district of Southeast London, England, in the London Borough of Bexley with a small percentage of the district itself being in the London Borough of Greenwich. Bexleyheath is located on the border of Inner London and Outer London. It is east south-east of Charing Cross...

 . He got into politics through his father who was a printer in Fleet Street and joined the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 at 16. After attending BETHS School and Erith College of Technology, he graduated from Nottingham Polytechnic (now Nottingham Trent University), he worked for the Transport and General Workers Union in Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 in the mid-late 1980s, later working with Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

 helping to write speeches.

Lawson writes regularly for The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

and the New Statesman

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

about equality

Social equality

Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...

, democracy and the future of the left. He sometimes appears on TV and radio as a political commentator. He is chair of the pressure group Compass

Compass (think tank)

Compass is a left wing pressure group, aligned with the UK Labour Party describing itself as 'An umbrella grouping of the progressive left whose sum is greater than its parts'...

, whose goal is a more equal and democratic world. He is author of the pamphlet Dare More Democracy, which was based on interviews with swing voters in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

. More recently, he was written the book All Consuming.

Lawson is also the managing editor of the quarterly progressive

Progressivism

Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

 policy journal Renewal

Renewal (journal)

Renewal is a British left-wing political magazine, published in London, England, by Lawrence and Wishart.Renewal was founded in 1993 as the journal of the Labour Coordinating Committee in the wake of the Labour Party's fourth successive election defeat...

. Renewal was previously the journal of the Labour Coordinating Committee, which was wound up in 1998 and briefly replaced by the Labour Renewal Network. He was formerly an adviser to Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

, Chancellor of the Exchequer

Chancellor of the Exchequer

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...

 and before that a researcher for the Transport and General Workers' Union

Transport and General Workers' Union

The Transport and General Workers' Union, also known as the TGWU and the T&G, was one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland - where it was known as the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union - with 900,000 members...

. He co-edited The Progressive Century (Palgrave, 2001).

At the end of 2004 he gave up his job as a founding director of public affairs company LLM Communications

LLM Communications

LLM Communications was a political lobbying firm founded in 1997 by Neal Lawson, Ben Lucas, and Jonathan Mendelsohn. It had 20 employees and 40 clients. In July 1998 LLM was reported to have saved Tesco £40m by persuading ministers to abandon plans for a supermarket car-park tax...

, cashing in his substantial shares in the company, to focus full time on writing and activism.