As Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, Chuka Umunna has had the Opposition’s higher education portfolio on his desk for much of this parliament. Although he hasn’t engaged with higher education or science all that comprehensively, his national profile is gaining momentum and he is positioning himself as a future Labour leader – an heir to Tony Blair but with a slightly modulated posture to make his politics more acceptable to the wider party-faithful. Higher education has been a headache for him, having inherited the tricky £6,000 fee proposal yet given a main mandate to restore the Labour Party’s standing in business, as a priority over all other BIS-related policy – including HE fees. Umunna is a media favourite and his links and experience with the higher education sector today matter if is to go on to the big things he clearly has planned.
This article is more than 9 years old
Chuka Umunna
As Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, Chuka Umunna has had the Opposition’s higher education portfolio on his desk for much of this parliament. Although he hasn’t engaged with higher education or science all that comprehensively, his national profile is gaining momentum and he is positioning himself as a future Labour leader … Continued
This article is more than 9 years old