Paul Richards joined the Labour Party in 1986. He works for various Labour MPs as well as trade unions, charities, and local authorities. His first political job, after being national chair of Labour’s student organisation, was policy adviser to a member of the shadow cabinet on environmental issues. He was on Labour staff for the 1992 election. Paul served as a special adviser at the department for health, Cabinet Office and Communities department working on counter-terrorism. He was Labour Parliamentary candidate in Billericay in 1997 and in Lewes in 2001. Paul was National chair of the Fabian Society and has written several Fabian pamphlets, as well as four books on policy and political communications. Paul has worked with socialist parties in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia to tackle the rise of populism. In 2021 he was Labour’s candidate for police and crime commissioner in Sussex. Paul is a member of the Co-op Party and Unite the union, as well as Bectu, and NUJ. He has attended every Labour annual conference for 32 years.