Anneliese Dodds – Who is she and what is her story

Overview

Dr Anneliese Jane Dodds is a relative newcomer to Westminster, but in a meteoric rise was appointed as the first ever woman Shadow Chancellor in 2020, just three years after being elected to Parliament.

A year later however, Dodds was relieved of her position. Instead, since 2021, she has served as Chair of the Labour Party, with responsibility for overseeing Labour’s National Policy Forum.

Political Career

Anneliese Dodds entered Parliament for the safe Oxford East constituency in 2017, before which she had previously spent three years as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England.

During her time as a Labour MEP, Dodds served on the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, focusing on corporate tax avoidance.

Upon arriving at Westminster, these credentials saw Dodds quickly promoted to John McDonnell’s Shadow Treasury team. Dodds served as a junior Shadow Treasury Minister from 2017 to 2020. She was then appointed Shadow Chancellor in 2020.

In May 2021, Dodds appeared to have been singled out for failing to cut through in her role, and was one of the highest profile casualties of Sir Keir Starmer’s first Shadow Cabinet reshuffle. Dodds was demoted to become Chair of the Labour Party.

As Labour Party Chair, she is though now in charge of a party policy review.

Political Views

Despite serving under McDonnell in the Shadow Treasury team, Dodds was by no means his ideological ally.

Described as part of the ‘soft-left’ of the Labour Party, Dodds was one of 80 Labour MPs to write Corbyn a letter in April 2019 imploring him to adopt a ‘second referendum’ policy as a condition for a potential Labour Brexit deal.

Dodds has described Gordon Brown, the former Labour Chancellor and Prime Minister, as her political inspiration. Dodd‘s has singled out Brown’s ‘international leadership’ during the 2008 financial crisis.

A native of Aberdeen, Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds previously took a hard line against Scottish Independence during the 2014 Scottish Referendum and has previously asserted that the idea, ‘that there is some sort of Scottish race..is a fiction and I find it very bizarre’.

Adopting a more sober line in her new position, Dodds has stated that a second independence referendum is not ‘what’s good for Scotland right now’.

Background

How old is Anneliese Dodds?
Anneliese Jane Dodds was born on the 16th of March 1978.

What did Anneliese Dodds do before entering Politics?
Before politics, Dodds achieved a first-class degree in Philosophy Politics and Economics (PPE) at Oxford University. After undertaking a PhD, Dodds became a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Aston University in Birmingham.

Is Anneliese Dodds Married?
Dodds is married to Ed Turner, the deputy leader of Oxford City Council. The couple have a son and a daughter.

Anneliese Dodds – 3 Things you may not know

Her father was an accountant
Dodds’ late father was a Chartered Accountant. In an interview with the Mirror, Dodds said of her father, ‘One thing he genuinely was passionate about was countering fraud’.

She wrote a PhD on the impact of liberalisation on policies for international students
In her 20s, Dr Dodds completed a PhD on the impact of liberalisation on policies for international students. It can be read online here.

She was a student activist
In her time at Oxford University, Dodds became heavily involved in student politics. She took to the streets in 2000 to protest against ‘New Labour’s’ introduction of tuition fees.

So prominent was Dodds that she became Oxford University Student Union President in 1998; however, the University’s student newspaper revealed that Dodds was fined £75 for encouraging students at St Hilda’s to vote for her campaign via email, something forbidden under OUSU rules.

Clearly keen to gain early experience of elections, Dodds was also elected JCR President of St Hilda’s College.