Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis.html



Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis (born 22 February 1963)¹ is a United Kingdom Minister of State in the Department for Transport, a role he has held since 3 October 2008. He was first appointed to government following the 2005 general election as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Children, Schools and Families (formerly the Department for Education and Skills). He previously served as education and constitution policy advisor on the Number 10 Policy Unit from 1998 to 2005, heading it from 2001-2003.¹² Before joining the government, Adonis was an academic at Oxford university, then a journalist at the Financial Times and the Observer.¹²³

Early and private life

Andrew (originally named Andreas) is the son of an immigrant Greek Cypriot father and an English mother.⁴ His mother left the family when he was a toddler and has had no communication with him since.⁴ Shortly thereafter, Andrew was placed in care and lived in a council children's home until the age of 11, when he was awarded a local education authority grant to attend Kingham Hill School.⁵

After Kingham Hill Adonis went to nearby Keble College, Oxford University,⁶ graduating with a first class BA in modern history. He then moved to Christ Church and completed a D.Phil on the British aristocracy of the late 19th century⁵ 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 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 a Oxford city councillor for the Liberal Democrats.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 hard-left MP Jeremy Corbyn; he was selected to contest St George's Ward, Islington Council for Labour in 1998 - coincidentally, the poet laureate Andrew Motion, a Labour Party member, lives in this ward - but withdrew from the process when the education and constitution policy advisor post previously referred to was offered. On 16 May 2005⁸ or 23 May 2005⁹ he was created a life peer as Baron Adonis, of Camden Town in the London Borough of Camden, elevation to membership of the House of Lords making possible his appointment as a government minister ¹⁰.

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. 

Various New Statesman articles

1. Ben Pimlott The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II – book review, 1996, Andrew Adonis
2. Our progressives only look dead (prospects for a revival of progressivism in the United Kingdom), 1996, Andrew Adonis
3. Christopher Booker and Richard North The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must Get Out of Europe – book review, 1996, Andrew Adonis
4. Anthony Barnett This Time: Our Constitutional Revolution – book review, 1996, Andrew Adonis

References

External links

• Lord Adonis: Picture