Tristram Hunt

The Hon Tristram Hunt FRHistS MP
Stoke-on-Trent Central MP, Tristram Hunt
Shadow Secretary of State for Education
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 October 2013
Leader	Ed Miliband
Preceded by	Stephen Twigg
Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 May 2010
Preceded by	Mark Fisher
Majority	5,566 (17.1%)
Personal details
Born	Tristram Julian William Hunt (1974-05-31) 31 May 1974 Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Relations	Julian Hunt (father) Giles Foden (brother-in-law)
Children	one son, two daughters
Residence	London and Stoke-on-Trent
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge; University of Chicago
Occupation	Historian, broadcaster, columnist, politician
Profession	Teaching
Religion	Anglican
Website	tristramhunt.com

Tristram Julian William Hunt FRHistS (born 31 May 1974) is a British Labour Party politician, activist, historian, broadcaster and newspaper columnist, who is currently the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central. He also teaches and lectures on modern British history at Queen Mary, University of London^[1] in Mile End, East London. He has written several books and appeared as broadcaster for history programmes on television. Hunt is a regular writer for the Guardian and the Observer.^[2]

Hunt is a member of the Labour Party, and after supporting the party as an activist for several years and working as a member of the party's staff, he entered the political arena professionally, becoming an MP at the 2010 general election.

Early life and education

Hunt is the son of Julian Hunt, a meteorologist and leader of the Labour Group on Cambridge City Council in 1972-3, who was created a Labour Life Peer on the recommendation of Tony Blair in 2000.^[3] After attending University College School where he got two As (History and Latin) and a B (English Literature), Tristram Hunt read History at Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Chicago, and was for a time an Associate Fellow of the Centre for History and Economics at King's College, Cambridge. His PhD, Civic thought in Britain, c.1820– c.1860, was taken at Cambridge and was awarded in 2000. While at Cambridge he was a member of the Footlights, where he was a contemporary of David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

Career as an historian

Hunt was a Fellow of the Institute for Public Policy Research and is on the board of the New Local Government Network (2004). He has made many appearances on television, presenting programmes on the English Civil War (2002), the theories of Isaac Newton (Great Britons, 2002),^[4] and the rise of the middle class, and makes regular appearances on BBC Radio 4, having presented broadcasts on such topics as the history of the signature. His first book is The English Civil War: At First Hand (2002, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 029782953X).

Hunt's main area of expertise is urban history, specifically during the Victorian era, and it is this subject which provided him with his second book, Building Jerusalem (2004, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0297607677). This book, covering such notable Victorian minds as John Ruskin, Joseph Chamberlain and Thomas Carlyle received many favourable reviews, but some criticism, notably a scathing review in the Times Literary Supplement by J. Mordaunt Crook ('The Future was Bromley', TLS, 13 August 2004). In 2006, Hunt wrote Making our Mark, a publication celebrating CPRE's eightieth anniversary. He then completed a BBC series entitled The Protestant Revolution, examining the influence of Protestantism on British and international attitudes to work and leisure for broadcast on BBC Four.^[5]

Turning to biography, Hunt wrote The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, ISBN 0713998520 (U.S. title: Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, ISBN 0805080252), published in May 2009. For the book, Hunt researched at German and Russian libraries and begins with an account of the author's own trip to Engels, Russia. The biography received a number of favourable reviews, including one from Roy Hattersley, the former deputy leader of the Labour party, in The Observer.^[6] In 2007 he was a judge for the Samuel Johnson Prize,^[7] the winner being Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

Political career

Hunt worked for the Labour Party at Millbank Tower in the 1997 general election; he also worked at the Party's headquarters during the following 2001 general election; during the 2005 general election he supported Oona King's campaign in Bethnal Green and Bow.

In the summer of 2007 he failed to be selected for the safe Labour seat of Liverpool West Derby, where Stephen Twigg was selected instead,^[8] and in 2009 for the safe seat of Leyton and Wanstead.^[9]

Hunt was selected to stand for Stoke-on-Trent Central on 1 April 2010.^[10][11] Because the candidacy was filled just before the election, the shortlist was drawn up by Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee selection panel, with none on the shortlist local to Stoke-on-Trent. This led to the secretary of the Constituency Labour Party, Gary Elsby, standing as an independent candidate against Hunt in protest.^[12][13] Despite the controversy of being "parachuted in" to the district Hunt was elected with 38.8% of the vote. The closest fought contest in the constituency in decades, he still boasted a majority of 5,566 over his nearest rival.^[14]

In April 2013, he was appointed Shadow Junior Education Minister, replacing Karen Buck who became PPS to Ed Miliband. On 7 October 2013, Hunt was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet, replacing Stephen Twigg as Shadow Secretary of State for Education.

Political views

Hunt is a Trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund and has a column with the British Sunday paper The Observer. He wrote an essay in the New Statesman comparing Cromwell's Republic to the Islamic fundamentalism dominant in Afghanistan at that time, 2001.^[15]

Speaking of his constituency he said "The key to helping manufacturing is investing in education and schools and also selling Stoke nationally and internationally as a place to invest."^[16] He also criticized the local council's decision to "to try to obliterate the past out and sort of 'cleanse', removing the old bottle ovens and other relics".^[17] He instead believed that the city's reputation as a quality pottery maker should be exploited.^[17] He also stated he could better serve his constituency if he were to become a government minister.^[17]

Personal life

He is married with one son and two daughters. He lives in London. His brother-in-law is the author Giles Foden.

Titles from birth

• Tristram Hunt (1974–2000)
• The Hon Tristram Hunt (May 2000–October 2000)^[18]
• Dr The Hon Tristram Hunt (October 2000 – 2010)^[19]
• Dr The Hon Tristram Hunt MP (2010–present)

References

External links

• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live
• Articles authored at Journalisted
• Article archive at The Guardian
• Tristram Hunt at the Internet Movie Database