predecessor successor leader party office birth_date term_start article_title term_end name
peter watt iain mcnicol gordon brown ed miliband labour party general secretary of the labour party 21 december 1954 12 june 2008 ray collins , baron collins of highbury
 19 july 2011 ray collins
ray collins , baron collins of highbury

ray edward harry collins , baron collins of highbury -lrb- born 21 december 1954 -rrb- is a british life peer and trade unionist who was appointed general secretary of the labour party on 12 june 2008 .
collins was appointed central office manager of the transport and general workers ' union in 1984 and held essentially the same post until 2008 , being redesignated head of administration in the 1990s and assistant general secretary in 1999 .
he has been a member of the labour party for over thirty years and has campaigned for the party in every general election since 1970 .
he wastgwu representative on the labour party national policy forum and a member of labour 's national constitutional committee .
in december 2007 , he was named the 27th most influential lgbt person in british politics by `` pink news '' .
he helped steer the tgwu into a merger with amicus , creating unite , one of the largest trade unions in the country .
collins took the helm because the party was reportedly close to bankruptcy .
in may 2008 , electoral commission figures showed the party was # 17.8 million in debt .
on 20 january 2011 , collins was created a life peer as baron collins of highbury , of highbury in the london borough of islington , and was introduced in the house of lords on 24 january 2011 , where he sits on the labour benches .
he was appointed a whip in 2011 .
he was appointed labour 's lords spokesperson for international development in 2013 .
on 10 july 2013 collins was asked to review and make recommendations for internal labour party reform .
his recommendations included replacing the electoral college system for selecting new leaders with a `` one member , one vote '' system .
mass membership would be encouraged by allowing `` registered supporters '' to join at a low cost , as well as full membership .
members from the trade unions would also have to explicitly `` opt in '' rather than `` opt out '' of paying a political levy to labour .
on 1 march 2014 , at a special conference , the party largely adopted these recommendation .
