Andrew Adonis

Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis, PC (born Andreas Adonis; 22 February 1963) is a British Labour Party politician and journalist who served in HM Government for five years in the Blair ministry and the Brown ministry. He served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2009 to 2010, and as Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission from 2015 to 2017. He is also Chair of the European Movement, having previously served as Vice-Chair, and is currently a columnist for The New European.

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 created a life peer in 2005, when he was appointed Minister of State for Education in HM Government. 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 Transport Secretary, 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. Like Jenkins, Adonis speaks with rhotacism. His latest book, Ernest Bevin: Labour's Churchill, is a biography of the Labour politician Ernest 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 the European Union and a vocal opponent of Brexit. Following the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union, he then became a key campaigner for a second referendum on British departure from the EU. In March of 2020, Adonis tweeted in favour of rejoining the EU and adopting the Euro as the UK currency, adding, "Next time we can't be half in, half out."

Personal Life
Adonis was formerly married to Kathryn Davies, who was once a student of his; the couple had two children. Adonis and Davies divorced in 2015. In a profile in the Evening Standard in 2019, the journalist Julian Glover reported that Adonis was gay.