Spencer Livermore

Spencer Livermore (born June 12, 1975, Slough, England) used to work for the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, as Director of Political Strategy. He has since left Number 10, the first senior figure to do so since Gordon Brown became the Prime Minister, heading for the world of advertising.citation |title=Livermore joins ad industry |periodical=The Guardian |date=2008-03-17 |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/17/advertising.media?gusrc=rss&feed=politics |accessdate=2008-07-29]

Livermore grew up in Wickford, Essex, attending Beauchamps Comprehensive School and Basildon College, before reading Government at the London School of Economics, where he graduated in 1996. After graduating, Livermore worked for the Labour Party's Economic Secretariat during the 1997 General Election campaign in which the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair returned to power following 18 years in opposition to the Conservative Party.

After the campaign he progressed quickly, and in 1998 was appointed a Special Adviser in the Treasury, working as a key political aide to Gordon Brown, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the run-up to the 2001 General Election, at the request of the Chancellor, who was Chair of Strategy for the election campaign, Livermore left the Treasury to work alongside the General Election co-ordinator Douglas Alexander, Member of Parliament, at the Labour Party’s Millbank Tower headquarters as Head of Attack.

When he returned to the Treasury after the 2001 General Election, Livermore was appointed as Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. After the 2005 General Election he was appointed as the most senior Adviser to the Chancellor as Chief Political and Strategy Adviser.

Following Tony Blair’s resignation as Prime Minister on June 27 2007, Gordon Brown, as the new Leader of the Labour Party, became Prime Minister. Gordon Brown appointed Livermore to 10 Downing Street as Director of Political Strategy, attending Cabinet meetings and becoming a key figure in the Prime Minister’s strategy for the next General Election.

Livermore is one of very few senior political figures to have come out as gay. In May 2007 he was listed as the seventh most powerful gay man in Britain.citation |title=The pink list 2007 |periodical=The Independent |date=2007-05-06 |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20070506/ai_n19061118 |accessdate=2007-10-08] In November 2007 Gay Times described him as the most powerful gay man in Britain. He lives with his partner, Seb Dance, in London, who is also a government special adviser - to Northern Ireland Secretary, Shaun Woodward [http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wms/?id=2007-11-22a.147WS.4] , for whom he worked previously in the House of Commons.

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