Gail Rebuck
Baroness Gail Rebuck has been chief executive and chair of publishers Penguin Random House since 1991[1] and a director at the Tony Blair Foundation since 2013.
She is the widower of one of the key New Labour strategists Philip Gould.
She was made a Labour peer on the 18 September 2014.[2]
Contents
The deferred bribe
In August 2007, it was revealed that Blair would receive a large compensation for his memoirs. According to Colin Brown:
- Mr Murdoch, chief executive of HarperCollins' parent company, News Corporation, was thought to have done a handshake deal with the former prime minister in 2006, according to The Bookseller. But Random House also has strong links with Mr Blair through its UK chief executive Gail Rebuck, whose husband, Philip Gould, was one of the architects of new Labour.[3]
Blair's memoirs
As chief executive of Random House, Rebuck sanctioned the payment of a £4.6million advance to former Prime Minister and friend Tony Blair for his memoirs.[4]
Tony Blair Foundation
In 2013 she was announced as a director at Blair's charity, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. According to one of her friends, via the Telegraph newspaper, she was one of the charity's biggest cheerleaders before being put on the board.[4]
Israel Advocacy
In October 2015, Rebuck signed a letter in The Guardian along with more than 150 people drawn from the arts and politics. The letter launched Culture for Coexistence, an organisation that opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.[5]
Affiliations
- BSkyB
- Institute for Public Policy Research – Trustee (1993 to 2003)
- The UKGovernment's Creative Industries Task Force – member
- The Work Foundation
- Media Standards Trust
Resources
- Colin Brown, Blair hires Clinton's agent to seek £8m memoir deal, Independent, 17 August 2007.
Notes
- ↑ British Industry Awards, Gail Rebuck, accessed 4 February 2015
- ↑ Parliament.UK Baroness Rebuck, accessed 4 February 2015
- ↑ Colin Brown, Blair hires Clinton's agent to seek £8m memoir deal, Independent, 17 August 2007
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Richard Eden Tony Blair puts his faith in Gail Rebuck Telegraph, 31 March 2013, accessed 4 February 2015
- ↑ Harriet Sherwood, 'Star authors call for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue rather than boycotts', The Guardian, 22 October 2015, accessed 23 October 2015
