Anneliese Dodds

Anneliese Dodds has been the Labour and Co-operative member of parliament for Oxford East since 2017 and is Sir Keir Starmer’s current Shadow Chancellor. Dodds was born and raised in Aberdeen and studied Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. She went on to gain a master’s degree at the University of Edinburgh in Social Policy and a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics in Government. Dodds then began her career as an academic, working at both King’s College London and Aston University later in her career. She first attempted to enter politics in 2005, standing unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate for Bilaricay at that year’s general election, and was also unsuccessful five years later, standing for Reading East. In 2014, she was elected to the European Parliament, representing South East England. In the European Parliament, where she served on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. Dodds was selected as Labour’s candidate for the safe seat of Oxford East at the 2017 general election and held the seat for the party with an increased majority of 23,284. She resigned from the European Parliament on her election. Shortly after entering the Commons, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn appointed Dodds as shadow Treasury minister. An advocate of green technology, she has called for further investment in it, a ban on domestic flights and a push for greater use of public transport and cycling without the need for severe green taxes. In October 2020, she criticised Rishi Sunak’s ‘panicked’ handling of the economy, stating that, without a clear plan, the country would face a ‘1980s-style’ jobs crisis. Dodds consistently campaigned for the UK to remain within the European Union and was a vocal backer of a second referendum. Re-elected in 2019 with a reduced but still substantial majority of 17,832, Dodds backed Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership in early 2020.