Chuka Umunna



Chuka Harrison Umunna (born 17 October 1978) is a British Labour politician (in the loosest sense of thoses words) who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham since 2010 and was Shadow Business Secretary from 2011 to 2015.

Political career
In March 2008, Umunna was adopted as the Labour Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Streatham. At the 2010 general election, he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham with a 3,259 majority.

Umunna increased his majority to 13,934 at the 2015 General Election, with 53% of the vote in his constituency.

Umunna has described himself as being "One Nation Labour" and has written articles promoting the "Blue Labour" trend. He has also described himself as a "modern European social democrat" (so yes - Labour in the loosest sense of the word).

In June 2010, he was elected as a member of the Treasury Select Committee.

In October 2010, following Miliband's election as party leader, Umunna was appointed to serve as his Parliamentary Private Secretary and, in May 2011, he was appointed to the position of Shadow Minister for Small Business and Enterprise until his promotion to the Shadow Cabinet.

Umunna was promoted as Shadow Business Secretary on 7 October 2011, replacing John Denham, who announced his retirement from front-bench politics. Following his appointment, Umunna re-affirmed Labour's commitment to introducing a graduate tax in place of university tuition fees.

In early April 2013, Umunna's law firm was linked to favourable updates made on his Wikipedia page in 2007, which included a reference to him being tipped as the "British Barack Obama". In the same month, Umunna was criticised for comments he had made in his mid 20s on the exclusive social network ASmallWorld about the West End of London. Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris said the 2006 comments, describing people visiting nightclubs in the West End as "trash" and "c-list wannabes", showed a "lack of respect for the public"; Umunna stated that the comments were meant to have been "light-hearted in tone and context" but appreciated that "the choice of words used were not appropriate" and apologised for any offence.

Umunna was accused of hypocrisy for accepting a £20,000 gift from a gambling executive despite campaigning against the spread of betting shops in his constituency and promising new powers to limit them.

In September 2015, following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as the Leader of the Labour Party, Umunna announced his resignation from the Shadow Cabinet and returned to the backbenches, citing differences over the Brexit referendum and issues of collective ministerial responsibility.