Matthew Taylor (Labour politician)

Matthew Taylor (born 5 December 1960) is a British former political strategist and current Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in the United Kingdom since 2006. In 2005, he was appointed by incumbent Prime Minister Tony Blair as head of the Number 10 Policy Unit.

Taylor is the only son of the sociologist and broadcaster Laurie Taylor and the historian Jennie Howells. He was educated at Emanuel School, the University of Southampton and University of Warwick. He has two grown up sons and a young daughter. He is an avid supporter of the football team West Bromwich Albion.

Taylor became a Labour Party Warwickshire county councillor, and unsuccessfully sought to become the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Warwick and Leamington in the 1992 general election. In 1994 he was put in charge of the Labour Party's rebuttal operation, becoming a Campaign Co-ordinator and Director of Policy during the 1997 general election. He helped to write the Labour Party manifesto, the pledge-card, and developed Excalibur, a rapid rebuttal database for use against the Conservative Party. Taylor became Assistant General Secretary of the Labour Party under Margaret McDonagh, but after clashes with her left in December 1998.