William Tanner is a former British political adviser who most recently served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the former Prime Minister,

Rishi Sunak Rishi Sunak (born 12 May 1980) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2022 to 2024. Following his defeat to Keir Starmer's La ...

Career

Tanner served as one of

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Baroness May of Maidenhead (; ; born 1 October 1956), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretar ...

's special advisers from 2014 whilst she was Home Secretary and then when she was Prime Minister from 2016, until leaving in 2017 after the

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

. Tanner then worked for Portland Communications as a political adviser for a year, before becoming in May 2018 the co-founder and initial director of the

think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...

Onward. When

became Prime Minister, Tanner returned to Number 10 as Deputy Chief of Staff. In May 2024, during the 2024 general election campaign, Tanner was labelled by ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' as being the author of the Conservative Party's plan to bring in a new form of

national service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

were they to win the election. He was criticised for his time in Government for "refus ngto suggest any number of immigrants as an upper limit". Tanner was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the seat of Bury St. Edmunds & Stowmarket in the 2024 General Election. He campaigned alongside his party duties, hoping to replace Jo Churchill. He was unsuccessful in his bid, receiving 15,293 votes (30.0%), thereby losing the traditionally safe Conservative seat to the Labour candidate ( Peter Prinsley) by 1,452 votes.

Honours

In April 2025, Tanner was appointed a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

in the 2024 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours "for political and public service".

External links

References

Living people British special advisers Year of birth missing (living people) Conservative Party (UK) parliamentary candidates {{UK-poli-stub