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Special report: public services
The Guardian profile: Andrew Adonis
The junior schools minister is a shadowy figure, but his thinking looms large in the education white paper Will Woodward Friday October 28, 2005 The Guardian "He's devoted to making a difference in urban schools." Photograph: Gareth Fuller / PA A sketch on Channel 4's Bremner, Bird and Fortune the other day had Ruth Kelly running round a bedroom, desperately trying to retrieve her policy from the clutches of a haughty Lord Adonis. This is essentially how most of the education world perceives the relationship between Lord Adonis, the former head of the Downing Street unit who is officially a junior schools minister, and Ms Kelly, his "boss". He's a mini-Mandelson, a Blair hatchetman. He is everywhere, and yet no one can see him. To Ted Wragg, emeritus professor of education at Exeter University, he is the personification of Tony Zoffis (as in "Tony Zoffis says ... "), or simply ABA (Andrew Bloody Adonis). The wags call him more Andrew than Adonis and Whitehall clerks dubbed him Muscles. When he left No 10 to join the ministerial ranks as Baron Adonis of Camden Town in the London Borough of Camden, even his critics welcomed the chance to hold him to account, albeit from the sinecure of the Lords. But Lord Adonis has remained a shadowy figure, with no set-piece newspaper interviews and little in the way of public announcements. Yet this week's white paper on secondary school reform is infused with his thinking. Fiona Millar, the former Downing Street aide, says: "It almost looks like it's been written by two different people." The first half - promoting private intervention, looking to all but abolish local authority involvement in state schools - reads as almost unadulterated Adonis. "He obviously thinks as Tony does," says the former education secretary Estelle (now Baroness) Morris. "If push comes to shove Andrew will always make sure middle-class interests are protected. Another branch of Labour party members will make sure that if push comes to shove the poor and disadvantaged kids are protected." Like the prime minister, Lord Adonis was educated at a boarding school - in his case Kingham Hill in the Cotswolds - and also Oxford. His two children are at state primary schools in Islington but he shares with Mr Blair the middle-class anxiety about the state of inner-city secondaries. And yet in other ways his background could not be more different from the privileged Mr Blair's. He escaped to Kingham Hill on a state scholarship, from a Camden council flat where he was brought up with his sister by his father Nicos, a waiter. Sir Cyril Taylor, chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, says: "He had a difficult childhood and that I think concentrates the mind. He went to boarding school because he couldn't stay at home, basically. He's committed to equal opportunities but he doesn't support the idea that comprehensive means a school has to be the same." Will Hutton, his former editor at the Observer, says his background helped make him "a very, very committed social democrat". Lord Adonis gained a first and then a DPhil from Oxford and took a fellowship at Nuffield College before joining the Financial Times, then the Observer as a columnist. "There's the Richard Littlejohn end of the spectrum and then there's the Andrew Adonis end of the spectrum," Mr Hutton says. In 1996 Mr Adonis wrote that as prime minister Mr Blair should appoint himself education secretary as well. Mr Blair did almost the next best thing, appointing Mr Adonis to the policy unit. His influence over previous white papers has been, says Lady Morris, "no more than was proper" for Mr Blair's enforcer. The city academies programme has been driven by him. "Andrew is a real visionary about education," says Rona Kiley, who worked with him on the programme. "He's personally devoted to making a difference in urban schools." Other Whitehall hands complained that he offered Mr Blair a less balanced view of the state of play than he received in other areas of public service reform, which encouraged the prime minister to demand more when teachers cried out for a respite from initiativitis. Lady Morris describes Lord Adonis as "very bright, and very personable - he has a formidable intellect. His journalistic background makes it very helpful in putting over ideas. His weakness is that I am not sure how much he is grounded in a lot of delivery." On the other hand, Sir Cyril says: "I think he's extraordinarily effective in guiding reforms through. He's been involved since 1997, if not earlier, and that helps because a lot of ministers have changed." Now time is short. Lord Adonis won't expect to last into a Brown premiership and - like the prime minister - this is his last stand. The CV Born February 22 1963 Family Married to Kathryn Davies, one son and one daughter Education Kingham Hill school, Oxfordshire; Keble College, Oxford (1st in Modern History); Christ Church College, Oxford (DPhil) Career 1987-91: Oxford city councillor for Lib Dems. 1988-91: research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. 1991-96: public policy correspondent, industry correspondent and public policy editor at FT. 1996-98: political columnist and contributing editor at the Observer. 1998: adviser in the prime minister's policy unit. 2001-03: head of policy, prime minister's office. 2003: stepped down to write official biography of Roy Jenkins, but retained post of senior policy adviser. 2005: created a life peer and appointed parliamentary secretary, Department for Education and Skills
25.10.2005: Kelly takes academy road to school reform 25.10.2005: Reaction: 'A return to failed rhetoric' 25.10.2005: Kelly denies going back to the old schools 25.10.2005: Children face exclusion under Blair's reform plans, critics warn 25.10.2005: Blair sweeps aside critics of school reform 24.10.2005: Blair risks Labour anger over reform of secondary schools 24.10.2005: PM unveils plans for self-governing schools
26.10.2005: How changes will work 26.10.2005: The story of a white paper
24.10.2005: Tony Blair's speech on education reform
See the poll details in full (pdf)
26.10.2005: Leader: Education white paper 25.10.2005: Donald MacLeod: Vintage visions 24.10.2005: Oliver King: If the kids are divided 25.10.2005: Phil Revell: Few parents welcome Blair's model for choice 24.10.2005: Peter Hyman: Reforming zeal is no substitute for better policies 23.10.2005: Gaby Hinsliff: So what state is education in?
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