Gordon Brown has pinned his hopes for political recovery on presenting himself as the leader of substance against a Tory leader who bends with the wind. Last night, however, he appointed the head of one of the country’s biggest PR outfits to be his political supremo.

The Conservatives swiftly described Stephen Carter — who was head of the media industry regulator Ofcom before he took over late last year as chief executive of the corporate communications company Brunswick — as a “chief spin-doctor”. In fact he will be much more than that.

Mr Carter, 43, who has impressed Mr Brown at several meetings in the past few years, has been put in charge not only of communications but also research, strategy and policy. He is the “big hitter” whom Mr Brown’s confidants have been privately saying he needs by his side to advise him, cajole him and even to stand up to him when the going gets tough.

His job will be to sell Mr Brown, as Alastair Campbell once sold Tony Blair, but he will also have to tell him when he is getting things wrong and what he should be doing to put them right. Mr Brown has surrounded himself with highly able former Treasury aides, but the view among his friends was that he needed someone with wider experience, a troubleshooter and team leader rolled into one. Someone who might have stopped last autumn’s non-election fiasco.

Yesterday Mr Carter emerged to answer the Prime Minister’s call. He has moved effortlessly up the communications world without apparently publicising his political sympathies. He was a Labour Party member before he joined Ofcom, and has rejoined on being appointed a special adviser.

He resigned from the post of chief executive of Brunswick, and stepped down as non-executive director of Royal Mail and Travis Perkins and as a commissioner of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. He will remain chairman of the Ashridge Business School and a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Brunswick is the City’s biggest financial public relations company, well versed in the dark arts of spin. Mr Carter would have spent much of his time soothing the egos of chief executives and helping them to devise how to disclose the best and often worst news.

His client list included a third of the FTSE 100. BA, Burberry, Reed Elsevier and Pearson all turn to Brunswick for advice. When Lord Browne of Madingley, the former chief executive of BP, stood down last year after revelations that he lied in court about a former gay lover, it was Mr Carter and his team at Brunswick who devised the media plan to break the news gently.

Mr Carter was reputed to be earning £500,000. At Downing Street he will be paid the top salary available for a special adviser — £137,000. However, he can reasonably expect compensation for whatever short-term salary reduction he suffers when he returns to business with the title of Principal Special Adviser in No 10 on his CV.

The Conservatives ridiculed the appointment, although privately senior advisers suggested that Mr Carter was a “catch”. Caroline Spelman, the Tory chairman, said: “Gordon Brown has provided no fresh start and no big vision. He should be hiring staff to deliver on his promises, not another chief spin-doctor to put more gloss on the failings of his Government.”

Mr Carter will be in charge of political strategy, communications and research and the policy unit, reporting directly to Mr Brown. He will attend Cabinet. Unlike Mr Campbell and Jonathan Powell, the towering figures at the centre of Mr Blair’s No 10, Mr Carter will not have special powers to deliver orders to civil servants. Tom Scholar is and remains Mr Brown’s chief of staff and Michael Ellam his communications chief. But his job description suggests that Mr Carter will be the person to whom everyone in No 10, be they civil servant or political appointee, will have to listen.

Stephen Carter

Born February 12, 1964

Education Currie High School, Edinburgh. Law at University of Aberdeen

1986 Joined J Walter Thompson as a graduate trainee specialising in media and technology

1994 Made chief executive of J Walter Thompson UK

2000 Managing director, NTL. Responsible for the company’s businesses in Britain and the Irish Republic. Left with a payoff and bonus of more than £1.6 million, even though the company filed for bankruptcy protection

2003 Chief executive, Ofcom

2006 Group chief executive, Brunswick

Personal Married to Anna, an Australian he met at J Walter Thompson. Two children

Hobby Running

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