Early life[edit]

Born near Grimsby, Carter studied at Sheffield University and the University of York, and has a DPhil in Political History.


Carter was tutor in the Department of Politics at the University of York from 1994. He subsequently held a number of jobs in the Labour Party, including head of policy, local organiser for Teesside and Durham and regional director in South West England during the 2001 general election.^[1] As Assistant General Secretary, he set up Forethought, a policy think tank within the Party.^[2][3]


In 1997, Carter was a member of Labour's National Policy Forum and parliamentary candidate for the Vale of York. Matt Carter is Labour's youngest General Secretary, appointed to the job aged 31 in December 2003.^[2] He took up office on 1 January 2004 succeeding David Triesman,^[2] and announced his resignation on 6 September 2005, following the 2005 general election victory.^[4]


While General Secretary, Carter organised the legal aspects of large loans from individuals to the Labour Party that were central to the Cash for Honours political scandal,^[5][6] while the elected Treasurer, Jack Dromey, was not informed about them.^[7] These debts eventually mounted to £24.5 million, and were finally fully repaid in 2015.^[8]


Carter has written The People's Party: the History of the Labour Party with Tony Wright (1997) and T.H. Green and the Development of Ethical Socialism (2003).


In January 2010 Carter became CEO of B-M UK, a leading public relations and communications consultancy, part of Young & Rubicam Brands, a subsidiary of WPP.^[9][10] He set up and ran the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) office of Penn, Schoen and Berland.^[11][12] In 2013 he founded Message House, a communications consultancy.^[11]


Matt Carter married Erica Moffitt in 1997 and has three children.^[1]