The Lord Adonis | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2019 | |
| Chairman of the European Movement | |
| In office 7 March 2021 – 14 December 2022 | |
| President | The Lord Heseltine |
| Vice President | The Lord Clarke of Nottingham The Baroness Quin |
| Preceded by | Stephen Dorrell |
| Succeeded by | Mike Galsworthy |
| Vice Chairman of the European Movement | |
| In office 15 January 2019 – 7 March 2021 | |
| President | The Lord Heseltine |
| Vice President | The Lord Clarke of Nottingham The Baroness Quin |
| Preceded by | Richard Corbett |
| Succeeded by | Richard Wilson |
| Secretary of State for Transport | |
| In office 5 June 2009 – 11 May 2010 | |
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown |
| Preceded by | Geoff Hoon |
| Succeeded by | Philip Hammond |
| Minister of State for Transport | |
| In office 3 October 2008 – 5 June 2009 | |
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown |
| Preceded by | Rosie Winterton |
| Succeeded by | Sadiq Khan |
| Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools and Learners[1] | |
| In office 10 May 2005 – 3 October 2008 | |
| Prime Minister | Tony Blair Gordon Brown |
| Preceded by | The Lord Filkin |
| Succeeded by | Sarah McCarthy-Fry |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 23 May 2005 Life peerage | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Andreas Adonis (1963-02-22)22 February 1963 (age 62) |
| Political party | Labour (1995–2015, since 2017) |
| Other political affiliations | Liberal Democrats (1988–1995) SDP (1985–1988) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | Keble College, Oxford (BA) Christ Church, Oxford (DPhil) |
| Profession | Journalist |
| Website | Official website |
Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis,PC (bornAndreas Adonis; 22 February 1963)[3] is a BritishLabour Party politician and journalist who served in theUK Government for five years in theBlair ministry and theBrown ministry.
He served asSecretary of State for Transport from 2009 to 2010, and asChairman of the National Infrastructure Commission from 2015 to 2017. He was Chair of theEuropean Movement, from March 2021 until December 2022[4] having previously served as Vice-Chairman from 2019 to 2021. He is currently a columnist forThe New European.[5]
Adonis began his career as anacademic at theUniversity of Oxford, before becoming a journalist at theFinancial Times and laterThe Observer.[3][6][7] Adonis was appointed by Prime MinisterTony Blair to be an advisor at theNumber 10 Policy Unit, specialising in constitutional and educational policy, in 1998. He was later promoted to become the Head of the Policy Unit from 2001 until being created alife peer in 2005, when he was appointedMinister of State for Education inHM Government.[3][6] He remained in that role whenGordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, before becomingMinister of State for Transport in 2008. In 2009, he was promoted tothe Cabinet asTransport Secretary, a position he held until 2010.[8]
Adonis has worked for a number ofthink tanks, is a board member ofPolicy Network and is the author or co-author of several books, including several studies of theBritish class system, the rise and fall of theCommunity Charge, and theVictorianHouse of Lords. He has also co-edited a collection of essays onRoy Jenkins. Like Jenkins, Adonis speaks withrhotacism. His latest book,Ernest Bevin: Labour's Churchill, is a biography of the Labour politicianErnest Bevin whom, alongside Tony Blair, Adonis regards as a source of inspiration for the modern Labour Party.
Adonis is a strong supporter and advocate of theEuropean Union (EU) and a vocal opponent ofBrexit. Following the2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, he became a key campaigner against the result of the referendum on British departure from the EU, supporting thePeople's Vote.
Adonis'sGreek Cypriot father, Nikos, emigrated fromCyprus as a teenager, becoming a waiter inLondon, where he met Adonis's English mother.[9] His mother left the family when he was three, and she has had no communication with him since.[9] Shortly thereafter Adonis and his sister were placed in care, because their father was working long hours and was not able to cope with sole parental responsibilities. Adonis lived in a council children's home until the age of 11, when he was awarded alocal education authority grant to attendKingham Hill School, a boarding school inOxfordshire.[10]
Adonis studied atKeble College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern History in 1984.[11] He pursued further studies atOxford and undertook aDoctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree atChrist Church, which he completed in 1988 with a thesis entitledThe political role of the British peerage in the Third Reform Act system, c. 1885–1914.[12] He was then elected afellow in history and politics atNuffield College.[3][10]
From 1991 to 1996, Adonis was an education and industry correspondent at theFinancial Times, eventually becoming their public policy editor.[3] In 1996, he moved toThe Observer to work as a political columnist, leader writer and editor.[3]
From 1987 until 1991, Adonis served as anOxford City Councillor for theSocial Democratic Party and later theLiberal Democrats, representing theNorth Ward.[3] In 1994, he was selected by the Liberal Democrats as theirprospective parliamentary candidate for theWestbury constituency, but he resigned after 18 months. In the following year he joined theLabour Party.[13]
During the mid-to-late 1990s he was politically active for Labour inIslington North, the constituency represented byJeremy Corbyn, and was selected as Labour candidate to contest St George's Ward forIslington London Borough Council in 1998.[citation needed] He withdrew from the process before the election, however, upon being offered a position in theNumber 10 Policy Unit as a constitutional and educational policy advisor in 1997. He remained in this role until 2001, when he was promoted to become Head of the Policy Unit.[citation needed]
On 16 May 2005, he was created alife peer asBaron Adonis,ofCamden Town in theLondon Borough of Camden.[14] This made it possible for him to serve as agovernment minister, representing it in theHouse of Lords.[15]
Lord Adonis became theParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education in theDepartment for Education and Skills, which was later renamed theDepartment for Children, Schools and Families. He was closely involved in theLondon Challenge.[16]
Having been the architect of theacademies policy in the Policy Unit, Adonis was also able to be the driving force in Government behind the programme, which replaced failing and under-performing comprehensive schools with all-ability, independently managed academies, run on a not-for-profit basis. By the time he left the Department in October 2008, 133 academies were open and 300 more were in the pipeline. Research by theDepartment of Education suggests that performance at these early "sponsored" academies increased more quickly than in similar schools in the mainstream sector, however these figures do not take into account underlying factors which affect which schools are likely to become academies.[17] Policies on academies by Adonis were praised by someopposition politicians, including the thenConservative education spokesmanMichael Gove, who in 2008 said, "We are on the same page as Andrew Adonis."[18]
He encouragedstate schools to adopt practices of theprivate sector and generally believed in giving individual schools more independence and autonomy from central government and thelocal education authorities, although he voted against schools having more independent authority in the houses of parliament in 2006. His criticism of under-performingcomprehensives made him unpopular with some trade union members and some on the Labour Party's left-wing. In 2006 Adonis supported the conversion of some independent schools under financial duress into state academies, portrayed at the time as a new style ofdirect grant grammar schools although not selective.[19]
AsTony Blair's head of policy, Adonis was regarded as the architect oftuition fees in 2004 – a policy he criticised and disowned 13 years later.[20]
Having initially kept his position whenGordon Brown becamePrime Minister, Adonis was reshuffled to theDepartment for Transport on 3 October 2008, to becomeMinister of State. In May 2009, while reviewing potential cycle "super highways" withKulveer Ranger and then-London MayorBoris Johnson, the group had a narrow escape when a passing lorry's back door "suddenly flew open, dragged a parked car into the street and smashed into another – just feet from the group".[21]
On 5 June 2009, Adonis was promoted to theCabinet asSecretary of State for Transport and was sworn a member of thePrivy Council. In this role, he pioneered the plan forHigh Speed 2, the proposed high-speed railway line fromLondon toBirmingham and the north of England. The plan was published shortly before the2010 election, and has since been adopted and taken forward by subsequent governments, with some changes to the proposed route. In July 2015, Adonis was appointed a non-executive director to HS2 Board Ltd.[22]
Adonis planned and announced the electrification of theGreat Western Main Line fromLondon Paddington toBristol,Cardiff andSwansea, and the electrification of lines inNorth West England fromManchester toLiverpool and Manchester toPreston. This electrification programme, except for the Cardiff to Swansea section of the Great Western, was taken forward by the coalition government.[citation needed]
Adonis was a key figure in the aftermath of the2010 general election, which produced ahung parliament. He was reputed to favour aLib–Lab deal and, given his SDP background, was a member of Labour's negotiating team thatattempted to form an administration with theLiberal Democrats. After theLiberal Democrats formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party, Adonis stepped down from frontline politics.[23]
Adonis later returned to active politics in 2012, as part ofEd Miliband'sShadow cabinet reshuffle. He worked with former Shadow Business SecretaryChuka Umunna on crafting Labour's industrial strategy, and previously took up the role of Shadow Minister for Infrastructure in the House of Lords,[24] and overseeing the Armitt Review looking at future infrastructure plans for the Labour Party.[25]
In July 2010, Adonis became the director of theInstitute for Government, an independent charity with cross-party support andWhitehall governance working to improve government effectiveness.[24] Adonis left the Institute for Government in January 2012, to become Chair ofProgress, an internal Labour Party organisation.[26][27] Having been appointed President of the Independent Academies Association, in 2012, Adonis was also admitted as aLiverymanHonoris Causa of theWorshipful Company of Haberdashers, one of the major charitable promoters ofacademies.[28]
Lord Adonis is aTrustee ofTeach First, the charity which recruits graduates to teach in state schools, as well as a Trustee of the vocational education charityEdge, and aGovernor of the Baker-Dearing Trust, which supports the establishment of University Technical Colleges, technical schools for 14- to 18-year-olds.[29][30] He has been a Director of RM Plc since October 2011. His book on education reform –Education, Education, Education – was published byBiteback in September 2012.[31] In November 2014, he was appointed visiting professor atKing's College London.[32]
Adonis considered standing[33] to be Labour's candidate forMayor of London in2016, but ended his putative campaign in February 2015, endorsingTessa Jowell.[34]
In October 2015, he resigned the Labour Party whip in the House of Lords to sit as anon-affiliated peer and lead a newly createdNational Infrastructure Commission (NIC). However, he resigned from the NIC in December 2017 because of HM Government's approach toBrexit, saying the UK was "hurtling towards the EU's emergency exit with no credible plan for the future of British trade and European co-operation".[35]Adonis said he planned to oppose "relentlessly" the government'sEuropean Union (Withdrawal) Bill in the House of Lords. In his resignation letter, he wrote that, as well as Brexit, the recent decision to end theInterCity East Coastrail franchise three years early, at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds, would also have forced him to quit. He also claimed that "taking us back into Europe will become the mission of our children's generation".[36] On 15 April 2018 Adonis attended the launch event of thePeople's Vote, a campaign group calling for a public vote on the finalBrexit deal between the UK and the European Union.[37]
In 2018, Adonis also became a weekly columnist forThe New European, a newly created newspaper which campaigned against Brexit and supported the People's Vote campaign.
In the2019 European Parliament election, Adonis was second on Labour'sparty list forSouth West England[38] but was not elected. Labour's share of the vote was 6.5% (a fall of 7.3% relative to the 2014 result) and the party lost its only MEP in the region.
Adonis was a participant at the 30 May – 2 June 2019Bilderberg Meeting atMontreux, Switzerland.[39]
Adonis advocated a rapid reopening of UK schools during theCOVID-19 pandemic.[40]
In May 2021, Adonis called for Tony Blair to return to frontline politics in the wake of a poll being released showing Labour 15% behind theConservatives.[41]
Adonis was formerly married to Kathryn Davies,[3] who had been a student of his;[9] the couple had two children.[10] Adonis and Davies divorced in 2015. In a profile in theEvening Standard from May 2019, the journalistJulian Glover reported that Adonis wasgay.[42] Adoniscame out as gay in an interview with thei newspaper in October 2019.[43]
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| Year | Review article | Work(s) reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Adonis, Andrew (21 November 2014). "Boney's bungles".New Statesman.143 (5237): 45. | Roberts, Andrew (2014).Napoleon the Great. London: Allen Lane. |
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Minister of State for Education 2005–2008 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of State for Transport 2008–2009 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for Transport 2009–2010 | Succeeded by |
| Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Gentlemen Baron Adonis | Followed by |
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| International | |
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| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
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