As the Labour party reflects on its recent election and opinion poll losses, many MPs and commentators are speculating on who could potentially become the party’s next leader. One name that frequently comes up is shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt. Despite being elected in 2010 and only being elevated to the shadow cabinet in October of last year, Hunt has already gained attention due to his charm, telegenic good looks, and middle-class background, as well as his connections with Labour’s cerebral upper-middle-class wing. His father was a life peer and meteorologist who once led Labour on Cambridge city council, and Hunt himself went to fee-charging University College school before attending Trinity College, Cambridge.
When asked about his leadership prospects, Hunt responds with a laugh and recounts a poll in the Mail on Sunday that rated him as less intelligent and less "in touch" than other possible Labour candidates. Despite this, Hunt claims that he does not want to get into the topic and repeats numerous times that Ed Miliband is making "a really big critique" of "the existing model of political economy". This academic way of phrasing things may not surprise those who know that Hunt earned his Cambridge PhD in history and has written several books, including a biography of Engels, a study of the English civil war, and the newly published Ten Cities That Made an Empire. Hunt still lecturers at Queen Mary, University of London.
Despite his impressive background, Hunt has faced some criticism as shadow education secretary. Many felt that his predecessor, Stephen Twigg, failed to oppose Michael Gove more forcefully or to differentiate Labour from Tory policies. While Hunt has been harsher in his words – calling Gove an ideological zealot, for example – he has shown no desire to undo Gove’s work. Education policy has been generally bipartisan for the past 30 years and, on Labour’s side in particular, is fraught with compromises. Hunt has no intention of making any drastic changes. "The history of British statecraft," he explains, "is to work with what you inherit and try to mould it in constructive and progressive ways."
As for Gove’s free schools and academies, Hunt has no plans to close them or place them under local authority control. Instead, he will "beef up" oversight of the process. While Hunt acknowledges that some academies and free schools may indirectly benefit middle-class children, he rejects the idea of restoring local authority control of admissions and instead plans to keep the existing system in place. New free schools will only be allowed in areas where there is a shortage of places and existing schools will be "re-connected to other schools".
Hunt is critical of Gove’s approach, which he calls "fragmentation and atomisation" of the school system. He argues that increased fragmentation only leads to greater risks, such as the allegations of hardline Muslim infiltration of governing bodies in Birmingham. Hunt believes that adequate oversight is impossible from a desk in Whitehall. "We shouldn’t make this too party political," he cautions, "because some governors allegedly involved were local authority appointments. But some of those schools were fragile, it seems that issues were highlighted, no action was taken and then they were allowed to convert to academy status with even less oversight."
He proposes appointing independent directors of school standards to hold schools accountable and reduce the risks of further Trojan horse-style infiltration, operating locally across council boundaries. The idea comes from a policy review by former Labour education secretary David Blunkett, which Hunt partly supports to deflect difficult questions regarding support for faith schools. The new directors would oversee schools of all types, challenge underperformance and decide who should run new schools. Hunt pledges to reverse Gove’s policy of allowing academies and free schools to employ unqualified teachers. He criticises Gove’s proposal to allow profit-making companies to run state schools and emphasises the importance of vocational and technical education. Labour proposes a proposed technical baccalaureate with business in the driving seat and new Institutes of Technical Education. Hunt believes these will not supersede GCSEs and A-levels, but play a supplementary role. Despite urging fee-charging schools to pay more attention to their founding principles of helping poor children, he will not revoke their tax perks as he does not wish for the government to decide what is a charity.
The responses of Hunt may not be satisfying for many Labour supporters. Nevertheless, opposition parties tend to encounter difficulties in adopting an educational policy, as any potential voter enthusiasm for radical policies could be eclipsed by parental concerns over the disruptions that such policies might cause to their children’s education. Although many acknowledge that Hunt is an amicable and thoughtful politician, he has not been able to achieve a stellar performance in parliament when compared to Gove, receiving only average reviews. Concerning his prospects for leadership, several sources in Westminster have hinted that his chances are almost non-existent, with doubts about whether he will even make a candidacy. Yet, a highlight in John Rentoul’s biography of Tony Blair is that, back in 1989-90, when academics asked party members to state their preferences for a leader from a list that excluded Blair, they were surprised by the eventual outcome.