Following the dismal failure of the Labour party in the general elections last Thursday, Ed Miliband immediately stepped down as party leader. Now the race is on for who succeeds him - with his brother David Miliband ruling himself out in the running, though criticising the whole Labour campaign citing that it wasn't favourable to the electorate. The following are the contenders for Labour leadership;
Chuka Umunna
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| Chuka Umunna (MP) (Source: idtobetter.com) |
Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills since 2011 and Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham since 2010. He increased his majority by more than 10 000 in last week's general elections. A few days before announcing he will run for the party's leadership, he came open about what went wrong with the Labour campaign. He sighted issues of it not being inspirational enough, had too much focus on the very rich and the very poor, and a failure to be pro-business - a sentiment he shares with Lord Sugar who yesterday announced his rejection of the party.
In June 2010, Umunna was elected as a member of the Treasury Select Committee and in October of the same year was appointed to serve as Ed Miliband's Parliamentary Private Secretary, and in 2011 was appointed to the position of Shadow Minister for Small Business and Enterprise until his promotion to the Shadow Cabinet.
Umunna studied law at the University of Manchester and did his Masters with Nottingham Trent University. He has said his politics and moral values come from Christianity but that he is "not majorly religious".
After university he worked as a lawyer in London and in 2006, began to write and provide commentary on the Labour party.
Born Chuka Harrison Umunna on 17 October 1978 in London to a Nigerian immigrant Bennett and his mother Patricia Milmo - a solicitor, is the daughter of the late Sir. Helenus Milmo (QS) a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. Umunna has been seen this week walking with his girlfriend Alice Sullivan hand in hand in public for the first time.
Liz Kendall
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| Liz Kendall (MP) Source: en.wikipedia.org |
Kendall has been the first to step out and announce that she will be running in the leadership contest - and saying out what should be done to reignite the party's flame. She spoke of the need to embrace those in the middle England who gave their votes to the Conservatives this time around. To her, the party's re-strategising will take longer than a few weeks or months and sees herself as the best candidate to see Labour through. Kendall's advantage in the race is of being a woman - following increased pressure on the party to elect its first female leader.
Kendall is the Shadow Minister for Care and Older People as well as MP for Leicester West.
She graduated with a first in history at Queens College, Cambridge and since then has worked in charities, think tanks and was a special adviser to two cabinet ministers.
Born Elizabeth Louise Kendall on 11 June 1971, she grew up in Abbots Langley. Kendall's domestic partner is the comedian and actor Greg Davies.
Yvette Cooper
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| Yvette Cooper (MP) Source: en.wikipedia.org |
Though Cooper has been described as the leading female candidate in the party, she is yet to declare. She is wife to Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Ed Balls who lost his Morley and Outwood seat.
She is the Shadow Home Secretary and has been seen to be a stronger contender to Theresa May. She has previously been the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions under Gordon Brown's rule and Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Minister of State for Housing and Planning.
Cooper is the MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford since 2010 having previously been the MP for Pontefract and Castleford since 1997. In February 2013, Cooper was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.
The Shadow Home Secretary attained a first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics. Born in Inverness, Scotland on 20 March 1969 her father Tony Cooper was a former General Secretary of Prospect Union, a former Non-Executive Director of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and a former Chairman of the British Nuclear Industry Forum. He was also a government adviser on the Energy Advisory Panel.
Andy Burnham
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| Andy Burnham (MP) Source: www.mirror.co.uk |
Burnham has not declared his bid to run for Labour leadership, but he is seemingly the more experienced of those who have bidden and those that are likely to. If he is to declare, this won't be the first time he has done so as in 2010 after Gordon Brown's resignation, he also declared his intention to stand in the contest. He however finished forth with only 9 percent of the votes to Ed Miliband. Burnham's disadvantage is of carrying the history of Gordon Brown's government.
Shadow Secretary of State for Health since October 2011, a post he took up after being Shadow Secretary of State for Education in October 2010. Burnham has been the MP for Leigh since 2001. Under the leadership of Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010 he held the following posts, Chief Secretary to the Treasury (June 2007 - January 2008), Secreatary for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (January 2008 - June 2009), and Health Secretary (June 2009 - May 2010).
Born Andrew Murray Burnham on 7 January 1970 in Aintree, Merseyside, he practises Roman Catholicism. He studied English at Fitzwilliam College - University of Cambridge.
Tristram Hunt
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| Tristram Hunt (MP) Source: www.stokesentinel.co.uk |
Shadow Secretary of State for Education and MP for Stroke-on-Trent Central; as like Umunna spoken out on where the party went wrong. His criticism lies in Labour not doing enough to listen to businesses and that the party is not appealing enough to the centre ground. Hunt has however been met with some skepticism as being too closely resembling Ed Miliband's academic instead of practical politics.
Hunt studied history at Trinity College, Cambridge and completed his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the University of Cambridge. Born Tristram Julian William Hunt on 31 May 1974, his father Julian, Baron Hunt of Chesterton, a metereologist and leader of the Labour Group on Cambridge City Council in 1972-73 who was created a Labour Life Peer on the recommendation of Tony Blair in 2000.
Tristram Hunt is married to Juliet Thornback and they have two daughters and a son.
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