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Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis (born Andreas Adonis, 22 February 1963)[1] is a British Labour politician who has been the Secretary of State for Transport since 5 June 2009. He was first appointed to the government following the 2005 general election, as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Children, Schools and Families. He previously served as an education and constitution policy advisor on the Number 10 Policy Unit from 1998 to 2005, heading it from 2001 to 2003.[1][2] Before joining the government, Adonis was an academic at the University of Oxford, then a journalist at the Financial Times and The Observer.[1][2][3]
Early and private life
Adonis is the son of an immigrant Greek Cypriot father Nicos, a commis waiter, and an English mother.[4] His mother left the family when he was three and has had no communication with him since.[4] Shortly thereafter, he was placed in care and lived in a council children's home until the age of 11, when Adonis was awarded a local education authority grant to attend Kingham Hill School.[5]
After Kingham Hill, Adonis went to nearby Keble College, Oxford,[6] graduating with a first class BA in modern history. At Christ Church he subsequently completed a D.Phil on the British aristocracy of the late 19th century[5] before being appointed to a fellowship at Nuffield College.[1] From 1991 to 1996 he was a public policy correspondent, industry correspondent and public policy editor at the Financial Times.[1] In 1996, he moved to The Observer to work as a political columnist and editor.[1]
He is married to Kathryn Davies,[1] once a student of his,[4] with whom he has two young children named Edmund and Alice.[5] The family lives in Islington, North London.[4]
Political background
From 1987 until 1991 Adonis was an Oxford city councillor for the Alliance/Liberal Democrats, representing the North Ward [1]
In 1994, he was selected by Westbury Constituency Liberal Democrats as their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, but resigned after about 18 months, without having fought an election.[citation needed] The next year, he joined the Labour Party.[7] During the mid to late 1990s, he was politically active in Islington North, the constituency represented by the hard-left MP Jeremy Corbyn; he was selected to contest St George's Ward, Islington Council for Labour in 1998, but withdrew from the process when the education and constitution policy advisor post previously referred to was offered. On 16 May 2005 he was created a life peer as Baron Adonis, of Camden Town in the London Borough of Camden,[8] elevation to membership of the House of Lords making possible his appointment as a government minister without having been elected to Parliament.[9]
Ministerial career
Following his appointment to the House of Lords, Adonis became a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills (later the Department for Children, Schools and Families). In this role, he strongly advocated the creation of additional academies, specialist schools and trust schools.[10] He also encouraged state schools to adopt practices of the private sector and generally believed in giving individual schools more independence and autonomy from central government and the Local Education Authorities. His lack of support for traditional comprehensives made him unpopular with some trade union members and those on the Labour left-wing. He was popular with some opposition politicians, however, in particular the Conservative education spokesman Michael Gove who declared "We are on the same page as Andrew Adonis".[11]
In October 2008, Adonis was reshuffled to the Department for Transport holding a Minister of State position. In May 2009 while reviewing potential cycle "super highways" with Kulveer Ranger and Boris Johnson the group had a 'near-death' experience when a passing lorry's back door then 'suddenly flew open, dragged a parked car into the street and smashed into another – just feet from the group'.[12] He was promoted to Secretary of State for Transport in June 2009.
Religious beliefs
According to Anthony Seldon's biography of Tony Blair, Blair (2004), Adonis is a practising Anglican of the high church end of the spectrum. However, he has never spoken himself about his faith in public.[citation needed]
Selected publications
Books
- Andrew Adonis (Editor), Keith Thomas (Editor) (2004). Roy Jenkins: A Retrospective.
- Andrew Adonis, Stephen Pollard (1997). A Class Act: Myth of Britain's Classless Society.
- David Butler, Andrew Adonis & Tony Travers (1994). Failure in British government : the politics of the poll tax.
- Andrew Adonis (1993). Making Aristocracy Work: The Peerage and the Political System in Britain,.
- Andrew Adonis (Editor), Andrew Tyrie (Editor) (1989). Subsidiarity: no panacea.
- Anthony Seldon (2004). Blair: no panacea.
- Andrew Adonis (Editor), Tim Hames (Editor) (1994). The Thatcher-Reagan Decade in Perspective.
Various New Statesman articles
- Ben Pimlott The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II – book review, 1996, Andrew Adonis
- Our progressives only look dead (prospects for a revival of progressivism in the United Kingdom), 1996, Andrew Adonis
- Christopher Booker and Richard North The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must Get Out of Europe – book review, 1996, Andrew Adonis
- Anthony Barnett This Time: Our Constitutional Revolution – book review, 1996, Andrew Adonis
References
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