The Lord Doyle | |||||||||||||||||
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 Doyle in March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||
| Downing Street Director of Communications | |||||||||||||||||
| In office 5 July 2024 –28 March 2025 | |||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer | ||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Nerissa Chesterfield | ||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | James Lyons and Steph Driver | ||||||||||||||||
| Member of the House of Lords | |||||||||||||||||
| Life peerage 8 January 2026 | |||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | Matthew Leo Doyle | ||||||||||||||||
| Party | Labour | ||||||||||||||||
Matthew Leo Doyle,Baron Doyle is a British political adviser and political aide who served as Downing Street Director of Communications from July 2024 to March 2025.
Doyle was Head of Press and Broadcasting for the Labour Party between November 1998 and May 2005. [1] He was then special adviser to Work and Pensions Secretary,David Blunkett,from May to November 2005,before working as a special adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair from November 2005 to June 2007. [1] He was the Downing Street Deputy Director of Communications under Blair. [2] He departed Downing Street after Tony Blair left office as Prime Minister,and went on to work as the Political Director of Blair's office from June 2007 to February 2012. [1]
Doyle was also the TV Debates Media Director for Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the 2010 general election. [1]
In 2012,he established his own political consultancy,MLD Advisory Ltd. [1] He also spent two years as the European Director of Communications for the International Rescue Committee under former Foreign Secretary David Miliband. [1] [3]
Doyle led the press operation for Liz Kendall's campaign in the 2015 Labour leadership election. [4]
In 2017,he campaigned for the re-election of Scottish Labour councillor Sean Morton,after Morton was charged with possessing and distributing indecent images of children in December 2016. [5] [6]
Shortly after the Labour defeat in the 2021 Hartlepool by-election, [7] Doyle was appointed the Labour Party Director of Communications on an interim basis under Leader Keir Starmer,with the role later becoming permanent. [8] [9] [10] After Labour's victory in the 2024 general election, [11] Doyle was appointed Downing Street Director of Communications [12] [13] and stepped down from the role in March 2025. [14]
Doyle was nominated for a life peerage in December 2025 as part of the 2025 Political Peerages to sit in the House of Lords as a Labour peer;he was created Baron Doyle,of Great Barford in the County of Bedfordshire on 8 January 2026. [15] [16]
Doyle is Roman Catholic. [17]