Andy McSmith

Andy McSmith is a freelance English journalist.

McSmith was chief press officer for the Labour Party in the 1980s, working with director of communications Peter Mandelson.^[1]

He was a journalist at The Independent newspaper from April 2007 to April 2016, having previously been political correspondent on the same paper, and political editor of the Independent on Sunday (same newspaper)^[1] and chief political correspondent of The Daily Telegraph and The Observer (part of the Guardian stable).^[2] In 1993 he was sacked by the Daily Mirror and Labour Party MPs raised his dismissal in a motion in the House of Commons.^[3]

He is the author of seven books: biographies of longtime Conservative politician Kenneth Clarke and former Labour leader John Smith, a collection of short biographies called Faces of Labour: The Inside Story (1996), No Such Thing as Society: A History of Britain in the 1980s, Fear and the Muse Kept Watch (2015) about the great writers and artists who lived under Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union, a novel Innocent in the House, and Strange People I Have Known.^[2] He has also contributed to many other books. His play, One Bummer News Day, set in a newspaper office, was broadcast as part of the Play for Today series.^[4]

He lives in London.^[5]