Donal Blaney
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Donal Blaney (born 1974 Tunbridge Wells, Kent) is the Chief Executive of the Young Britons' Foundation and Director and General Counsel of Doughty Media Limited where he co-hosts a number of programmes for the TV station 18 Doughty Street Talk TV.
Blaney attended Tonbridge School (where his early interest in politics was inspired and nurtured by the historian and official biographer of Tony Blair and John Major, Anthony Seldon), followed by the University of Southampton from where he graduated in 1995 with a degree in law and was active in political circles under Conor Burns. He was admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 1998 and as a Solicitor of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (British Virgin Islands) in 2004.
Blaney was Chairman of Southampton University Conservative Association (1993-1994), of the now defunct National Association of Conservative Graduates (1997-1998), and was the first Chairman of Conservative Future (1998-1999). He also served as a Local Councillor in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham until 2002.
Along with Greg Smith and Ben Pickering he formed the Young Britons' Foundation in 2003.
After a period living in the British Virgin Islands between 2004 and 2006 when he worked for Walker Smith Solicitors, he returned to London as a solicitor specializing in tax law for Lennox Paton before joining Doughty Media Limited in 2006.
Blaney is also a prominent contributor to the very popular ConservativeHome website where he contributes a regular column extolling the virtues of Morton Blackwell's Laws of the Public Policy Process. Blackwell is President of the Leadership Institute based in Virginia, of which Blaney is a graduate. Its mission is "to identify, recruit, train and place conservatives in politics, government and media". Its alumni include Karl Rove, Grover Norquist and a former Director of the Christian Coalition.
