Profile: Andrew Adonis

The promotion of Andrew Adonis to the Lords as educationminister is the most controversial move of Tony Blair's reshuffle of junior government posts.

The former SDP activist and Downing Street adviser is a hate figure of the Labour left because of his radical views on public service reform.

However Adonis, also an ex-academic and newspaper columnist, remains a favourite of the prime minister who shares his belief in choice in schools provision and the extension of markets in the NHS.

Following his appointment to the Number 10 policy unit in 1998, Adonis became an increasingly influential behind the scenes figure, piloting plans for specialist schools and top-up university tuition fees through government.

A clash with then education secretary Estelle Morris was understood to be one of the reasons why she resigned from that post in 2002.

His position as the prime minister's lead adviser on public services has also led him to stray into health policy, pushing forward plans for foundation hospitals and greater consumer choice.

Following the surprise defeat of school standards minister Stephen Twigg in the Enfield Southgate seat last week, Blair was understood to be keen to fill the role with a fellow moderniser who would fulfil his third term ambitions.

Although he joins in a junior ministerial capacity, the move is sure to anger a broad range of backbench MPs while even education secretary Ruth Kelly was reported to have doubts about his potential appointment.

Supporters of Gordon Brown are suspicious of his views while those on the left will see it as evidence that Blair has failed to "listen and learn" as he claimed on his re-election.

Others also feel Adonis has shallow roots in the Labour Party, being close to, and the biographer of, the late Liberal Democrat Lord Jenkins.

His detractors refer to him as "more Andrew than Adonis" but his elevation to office could signal a determination within Blair to secure a radical legacy.