His name is Chuka Umunna. His father is Nigerian. His mother is Briton. This gives him the right to claim both countries. Umunna, who is a key player in the Labour Party, is called Britain’s Obama and is quoted to have said the first black British Prime Minister may be in the making.
His official title is Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. He holds this position in a shadow government set up by Britain’s opposition party, the Labour Party (LP) headed by Ed Miliband. Chuka Umunna, who has a Nigerian father and a British mother, is regarded as Miliband’s rising star. His rising status has also made him face a revolt from jealous Labour MPs who have accused him of running a ‘presidential-style’ Commons office.
Leaked documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday reveal that Shadow Business Secretary Mr Umunna has 11 people working for him – more than twice what many fellow Labour frontbenchers say they have.
His team, believed to be paid about £200,000 in total, includes no fewer than three ‘policy advisers’, a ‘personal assistant’ and a spin doctor.
The chain of command in what Labour MPs are referring to as ‘the court of King Chuka’ is set out in an elaborate ‘organogram’ with stylish Mr Umunna, 33, at the head.
The former City lawyer, promoted to the Shadow Cabinet last month, has had a meteoric rise in the Labour Party since becoming an MP 18 months ago.
He has been dubbed the ‘British Obama’ because of his good looks, talent and half-African heritage, an image he did little to play down, saying: ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we were to see a black Prime Minister in my lifetime.’
In order of ranking, Mr Umunna’s Westminster ‘First XI’ starts with: personal assistant Terri Jacques, chief political adviser Jake Sumner, political adviser (media) Gabriel Huntley and Anna Coffey, head of events and visits.
After that come three policy advisers, two constituency caseworkers, a junior parliamentary assistant and a placement student.
Most of the salary bill comes from Mr Umunna’s Commons staffing allowance of more than £115,000 a year and from extra public funds provided for Opposition frontbench spokesmen.
In addition, policy adviser Harry Holdstock is seconded from accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which pays his wages, and Richard Ascough, an official with the GMB union, is seconded from the Labour leader’s office. The highest-earning members of the MP’s staff are believed to be paid up to £40,000.
Wealthy Mr Umunna denies he is using his own personal income to subsidise his team.
Earlier this month, The Mail on Sunday revealed his mother’s £1million house, which he stands to inherit, was linked to a Jersey-based trust that helps ‘high net worth’ individuals to ‘plan for and mitigate tax liabilities’ – although he denies the arrangement reflects any attempt to limit the family’s tax bill.
Labour MPs said they were astonished by the size of Mr Umunna’s parliamentary staff. A fellow Shadow Minister said: ‘This is more like an empire than an office. I cannot believe that he merits such a large retinue and I am flabbergasted as to how he is paying for it. He has far more people than the rest of us. It is very puzzling.’
Mr Umunna’s spokesman said in addition to his unpaid placement student, the MP ‘has three full-time and one part-time staff working in constituency-related roles and a personal assistant’, adding: “This is in line with other London MPs and reflects the very high volume of casework in a constituency like Streatham.
“In Mr Umunna’s role as Shadow Business Secretary, he has two full-time advisers and one part-time member of staff, a part-time secondee from the private sector and a secondee from the Leader of the Opposition’s office working only one day a week. This is in line with his predecessor in the role, and is not unusual.”
A Labour Party spokesman said: “This effective level of staffing reflects the importance which Ed Miliband attaches to the business portfolio.”
Speaking to UK universities students three days ago, Umunna said: “At a time o f considerable change and instability, Universities UK has been a constant voice of good sense and reason. I know both my predecessor in the role, John Denham, and our former lead on Higher Education, Gareth Thomas, greatly appreciated your wise counsel and advice.
“Though he is not here, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank John, who is a real champion of Higher Education. He brought a huge amount of expertise to bear on the brief as a former Secretary of State for Innovation Universities and Skills and as Shadow Business Secretary.
“Both I and Shabana Mahmood, our new Shadow on Universities, want to maintain and grow the close working relationship John and Gareth had with you.
“I, of course, shadow Vince Cable. Vince is a bit different to me – he has been around for somewhat longer than me. In fact, a journalist pointed out when I was appointed in October that not only is Vince twice my age but, during his lifetime, he has been a member of the Labour Party for longer than I have.
“Anyway – notwithstanding the comparisons with Vince – though Shabana and I may not be in Government, we have an important role to play as an Opposition holding the government to account and ensuring they do right by our students, by the institutions our students attend, by those who work in them and, above all, by our country. You want this too which is why a constant dialogue, between us and you, is absolutely essential. For example, we will want to work closely with you on the forthcoming Bill and the changes that it will bring.
“Shabana and I will also be making a series of visits to universities in the coming months to listen and learn, and we look forward to engaging with many of you then as we develop our policy, and thank you for all your help and assistance to date.”
He added: “When the Conservative-led Government initially set out its changes to Higher Education – cutting the teaching grant by 80% and hiking up fees – we said what was proposed was unnecessary, unfair and unsustainable: not good for students or the future of Higher Education, one of Britain’s great success stories.
“It was why we asked the Government to lay out their plans in full so we could subject them to the necessary scrutiny. So what happened?
“The vote to triple tuition fees came first before any White Paper, surely the wrong way round. Then the changes on access and widening participation were forced out, with subsequent changes to those plans.
“As fees levels began to emerge with £9,000 looking to be far from the exception to the rule which the Government promised, their sums didn’t add up and a black hole came into view. First Ministers ignored this and claimed it would all even out in the end. But their miscalculation saw a scramble to claw back in other ways. There were exhortations; claims OFFA was now a regulator and would set levels; even threats to universities with Ministers crudely claiming that fee levels were so high because universities were inefficient.
“Let’s take a step back and reflect on that particular claim for a moment – in business, companies have to factor in risk and cost it. You are businesses too and this Government has displayed an abject lesson in creating unnecessary risk for you.
“So the White Paper arrives at the end of June of this year. When the threats failed, frankly because of the mess the Government had created, they pulled ‘core and margin’ and AAB out of a hat which they then bolted onto the original plans.
“This is no way to run government policy on Higher Education – this is no way to treat our universities. Vince Cable called his dismantling of the RDAs Maoist and chaotic. It could equally have applied to another area of his brief. The reforms are not the evolutionary change UK has argued for.”
Umunna also said: “It strikes at the root of what Ed Miliband has called the Promise of Britain – that the next generation should do better than the last.”
The Nation
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