Dan Hodges

Biography

Hodges is the son of the actress and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson and her then husband Roy Hodges. In the last twenty years, Hodges has worked as a parliamentary researcher, a Labour Party official, GMB official, and as director of communications for Transport for London under Ken Livingstone.

He has been a journalist and a blogger writing for The Guardian, the New Statesman, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and Labour Uncut. He supported Jon Cruddas in the 2007 deputy leadership election as a member of Compass, but has since been critical of the organisation. He supported David Miliband in the 2010 Labour leadership contest and was very critical of Ed Miliband. He also worked for the successful No to AV campaign in 2011.

Views

Hodges describes himself as a 'tribal neo-Blairite'. He was a vocal critic of the former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, as well as the current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. He quit the Labour Party of which he was a member for 27 years, but subsequently rejoined.

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 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.

In August 2013, Hodges expressed strong approval for David Cameron's administration ordering the border detention of David Miranda, the spouse of journalist Glenn Greenwald, under the Terrorism Act, who despite not being under suspicion of planning terrorist acts, was found to be carrying an external hard drive containing 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents, and whose detention was subsequently ruled lawful by the UK High Court, which accepted that Miranda's detention and the seizure of computer material was "an indirect interference with press freedom" but said this was justified by legitimate and "very pressing" interests of national security.

Hodges expressed support for the government suppressing whistleblowers spreading "information highly detrimental to the UK national interest". 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.

In 2014, Hodges declared his support for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections because of party leader Nick Clegg's stand against UKIP but supported Labour for the local elections. He rejoined the Labour Party in July 2015. Hodges supported Yvette Cooper for the Labour leadership but then resigned from the Labour Party a second time in December 2015 because of the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

In 2014, Hodges co-founded the Migration Matters Trust, a pro-immigration pressure group chaired by Barbara Roche, Lord Dholakia and Nadhim Zahawi and run by Atul Hatwal. 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.

In November 2015 Hodge's 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.

Personal life

Hodges married lobbyist Michelle di Leo in 2003, after meeting her at Labour Party Conference in 1999. In February 1992 he lost his left eye trying to stop a fight in a bar. He was a member of the Labour Party for 27 years (on and off). He lives in Blackheath with his wife, children and mother.