James Frayne

This article is part of the Lobbying Portal, a sunlight project from Spinwatch.

James Frayne is a former lobbyist who currently works as an adviser to Education minister Michael Gove at the UK Department for Education.

Background

James Frayne has worked at the highest levels of corporate, political, and government communications. He was director of communications for a British government department between 2011 and 2012, having previously worked for some of the biggest brands in the world in communications agencies in London and for a number of high-profile political campaigns.

James began his career working for Business for Sterling, the successful campaign against British membership of the European single currency, and he managed the No campaign against the proposed North East Regional Assembly in the 2004 referendum, which won an upset landslide against the government-backed Yes Campaign.

He also worked for the think tank Reform - helping launch the Doctors for Reform campaign to change the NHS - and has been campaign director of the TaxPayers Alliance. In 2011 the Guardian described him as being "one of the best Tory-leaning strategists".

As a campaign spokesman and analyst, James has appeared widely in broadcast media, including BBC One Breakfast News, the BBC News Channel, Sky News, Radio 4 Today Programme and PM Programme, BBC Radio 5 Live, and on numerous local BBC TV and radio stations and international TV stations.

He has written for The Spectator, Daily Telegraph, City A.M., the BBC News website, The Business magazine, PR Week, CorpComms magazine, and various blogs, including Conservative Home. The editor of Conservative Home named James blog - Campaign war room - Blog of the Year in 2010.

Affiliations

• Portland Communications
• Westbourne Communications

Resources

• • James Cusick, ‘Dump f***ing everyone’: the inside story of how Michael Gove’s vicious attack dogs are terrorising the DfE, The Independent, 15 February 2014