Philip Gould: Former advertising executive

The two-hour sessions, during which participants have wide-ranging discussions, are thought to be a means of finding out what ordinary people think in greater depth than simple opinion polls.

Mr Gould distils their comments into key phrases and insights, which are then used to help guide strategists efforts to draw up policies which will chime with the public mood.

A former advertising executive, Mr Gould, 50, met Peter Mandelson - then Labour's communications director - at a dinner party in 1985 and was invited to help reshape the party's presentation.

Dobson's beard targeted

He persuaded then leader Neil Kinnock to wear sharp suits and stop smoking in public, but gained the enmity of some Labour traditionalists, who said he promoted image over substance.

And headlines were memorably hit when Mr Gould suggested to the perennially-bearded former health secretary Frank Dobson that he should shave his beard off.

The mayoral candidate was told that voters find facial hair a turn off.

Mr Dobson was unimpressed by the image maker's bare-faced cheek. "Get stuffed," was his blunt reply to the suggestion.