Dan Hodges

English newspaper columnist

Glenda Jackson (mother)

Daniel Pearce Jackson Hodges (born 7 March 1969) is a British newspaper columnist. Since March 2016, he has written a weekly column for The Mail on Sunday. Prior to this, he was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph^[1] and in 2013 was described by James Forsyth in The Spectator as David Cameron's "new favourite columnist".^[2]

Early life

Born in Lewisham, Hodges is the son of the actress and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson and her then-husband Roy Hodges, a repertory company stage-manager and actor.^[3]^[4]^[5] He was educated at Edge Hill College in Ormskirk, Lancashire, where he studied English Literature and Communications between 1987 and 1990.^[6]^[7] He worked as a parliamentary researcher for his mother between 1992 and 1997, describing it as 'straight-forward nepotism', before working in public relations for the Road Haulage Association, GMB and the Freedom To Fly lobby group.^[8] He worked briefly as Head of Communications at the London Development Agency and as Director of News for Transport for London in 2007, which he left after less than a year after mocking a contractor to the press.^[9] He subsequently led the campaign to introduce a congestion charge for Greater Manchester, which was overwhelmingly rejected in local referendums.^[10]^[11]

Journalism

Hodges has worked as a journalist and blogger, writing in a freelance capacity for the New Statesman, The Daily Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday. He worked for the successful No to AV campaign in 2011, but attracted controversy for a provocative anti-AV poster that suggested electoral reform might lead to the deaths of newborn babies.^[12]

In 2017, Hodges won the Political Commentator of the Year Award at The Comment Awards.^[13]

Labour Party

He supported Jon Cruddas in the 2007 deputy leadership election as a member of Compass, but has since been critical of the organisation.^[14]

He supported David Miliband in his unsuccessful campaign for the 2010 Labour leadership contest. Hodges describes himself as a "tribal neo-Blairite".^[15] He was a vocal critic of the former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband.^[16]

In May 2012, although he was then a long-standing member of the Labour Party, Hodges voted for the Conservative Boris Johnson in the London Mayoral elections, lauding him as a "unifying figure" over his former boss Ken Livingstone whom he saw as "divisive" and "a disgrace", adding that "London needs someone who can speak for all of London, not just the balkanized segments whose votes he craves". However, he still voted for Labour London Assembly candidates.^[17]

Following the House of Commons vote on 29 August 2013 against possible military involvement in the Syrian civil war, and objecting to Ed Miliband's conduct, Hodges left the Labour Party.^[18]

Hodges rejoined the Labour Party in July 2015 and supported Yvette Cooper for the Labour leadership, strongly opposing Jeremy Corbyn's candidacy.^[19]

Hodges announced his resignation from the Labour Party a second time in a December 2015 op-ed for The Daily Telegraph accusing party members of abuse and intimidation against Labour MPs.^[20]

Other views

Hodges has expressed support for the government censoring whistleblowers who are spreading "information highly detrimental to the UK national interest".^[21]

Other work

Hodges is also a wargame designer. His first game design was Where There Is Discord: War in the South Atlantic which is about the Falklands War.^[22]

In November 2015, Hodges' first book, One Minute To Ten, was published by Penguin Books. It focuses on the three party leaders Cameron, Miliband, and Clegg, and the effect the 2015 general election had on their lives.^[23]

Personal life

Hodges married Michelle di Leo in 2003, after meeting her at a Labour Party Conference in 1999.^[24] In February 1992, he lost the sight of his left eye trying to stop a fight in a bar.^[25] He lives in Blackheath with his wife and children.^[26]

References

^ "Dan Hodges". Telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014.
^ Forsyth, James (May 2013). "The secret of David Cameron's Europe strategy: he doesn't have one". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 26 September 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
^ Bryant, Christopher (1999). Glenda Jackson : the biography. Hammersmith, London: HarperCollinsPublishers. pp. 34–35. ISBN 0-00-255911-0. OCLC 42790640.
^ Woodward, Ian (1985). Glenda Jackson : a study in fire and ice. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 27–28. ISBN 0-297-78533-8. OCLC 11658097.
^ Ian Hall (28 February 2003). "Profile: Dan Hodges, Freedom To Fly". PR Week. prweek.com. Retrieved 4 November 2011.
^ "Glenda Jackson son: who is Dan Hodges as Oscar winning actress dies age 87". MSN. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
^ "twitter post". www.twitter.com. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
^ Ian Hall (28 February 2003). "Profile: Dan Hodges, Freedom To Fly". PR Week. prweek.com. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
^ Matt Cartmell (14 December 2007). "TFL PR Chief leaves London Underground". PR Week. prweek.com. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
^ "C-charge: The yes campaign". Manchester Evening News. 18 April 2010. Retrieved 22 November 2022.
^ "Congestion charge - no!". Local Government Chronicle (LGC). 15 December 2008. Retrieved 22 November 2022.
^ Hasan, Mehdi (20 October 2011). "Dan Hodges. The Truth. And me". New Statesman. Retrieved 16 February 2018.
^ "The Comment Awards 2017". www.commentawards.com. Archived from the original on 29 January 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
^ "Dan Hodges warns Labour against the new pluralism « Labour Uncut". labour-uncut.co.uk.
^ Dan Hodges: Keynote and motivational speaker, Chartwell Speakers Bureau
^ Allegretti, Aubrey (15 December 2015). "Dan Hodges Announces He's Leaving The Labour Party, Is Lambasted For Quitting Over Jeremy Corbyn". HuffPost. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
^ Dan Hodges (30 April 2012). "Ken Livingstone is right: it's him or Boris Johnson. That's why I'm voting Boris". The Daily Telegraph Blogs. The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 1 May 2012. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
^ Dan Hodges "Miliband was governed by narrow political interests – not those of Syrian children. I have left the Labour Party", telegraph.co.uk, 30 August 2013
^ Hodges, Dan (27 July 2015). "The only way Labour can win the next election is to elect Corbyn now". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
^ Hodges, Dan (15 December 2015). "Jeremy Corbyn has become the Left's Enoch Powell". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
^ Dan Hodges (20 August 2013). "Why does being a relative of Glenn Greenwald place you above the law". The Daily Telegraph Blogs. The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 20 August 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
^ "Confessions of a 'Grognard': why I am an unashamed board game geek". Archived from the original on 11 January 2014. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
^ Books, Penguin (28 October 2015). "One Minute To Ten". Penguin Books.
^ "Flying Matters". planestupid.com.
^ "Overview for Glenda Jackson". Turner Classic Movies.
^ Hodges, Dan (21 October 2014). "Ed Balls has just turned my house into a mansion. I'm not as happy about it as you might think". Archived from the original on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 12 December 2014.