The Right Honourable The Lord Adonis PC |
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Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission | |
Assumed office 5 October 2015 |
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Appointed by | George Osborne |
Preceded by | Commission established |
Secretary of State for Transport | |
In office 5 June 2009 – 11 May 2010 |
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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 |
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Prime Minister | Gordon Brown |
Preceded by | Rosie Winterton |
Succeeded by | Sadiq Khan |
Minister of State for Education | |
In office 11 May 2005 – 3 October 2008 |
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Prime Minister |
Tony Blair Gordon Brown |
Preceded by | Stephen Timms |
Succeeded by | Jim Knight |
Lord Temporal | |
Assumed office 16 May 2005 |
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Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit | |
In office 2001–2005 |
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Prime Minister | Tony Blair |
Preceded by | David Miliband |
Succeeded by | Matthew Taylor |
Personal details | |
Born |
Andreas Adonis 22 February 1963 London, United Kingdom |
Nationality | British |
Political party |
Social Democratic (1985–1987) Liberal Democrats (1987–1995) Labour (1995–2015) Crossbencher (2015–present) |
Spouse(s) | Kathryn Davies (Divorced) - 1994-2015 |
Children | Edmund Alice |
Alma mater |
Keble College, Oxford Christ Church, Oxford |
Profession | Journalist |
Religion | Greek Orthodoxy |
Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis PC (born Andreas Adonis, 22 February 1963) is a former British Labour Party politician, academic and journalist who served in the Labour Government for five years. He is currently chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission.
Adonis began his career as an academic at Oxford University, before becoming a journalist at the Financial Times and later The Observer. Adonis was appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair to be an advisor at the Number 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 made a life peer in 2005, when he was appointed to the Government soon after as Minister of State for Education. He remained in that role when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, before becoming Minister of State for Transport in 2008. In 2009, he was promoted to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport, a position he held until 2010.
Adonis has worked for a number of think tanks, is a board member of Policy Network and is the author or co-author of several books, including several studies of the British class system, the rise and fall of the Community Charge, and the Victorian House of Lords. He has also co-edited a collection of essays on Roy Jenkins. He was educated at Kingham Hill School and at Keble College and Nuffield College at Oxford.