Tristram Hunt

Tristram Hunt is Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Labour Candidate for Stoke-on-Trent Central. Previously, he was a Member of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Energy Intensive Industries. In April 2013, he was appointed a Shadow Education Minister, with responsibilities for young people, careers and junior apprenticeships.

He took a First Class degree in history from the University of Cambridge (1995), before serving as an Exchange Fellow at the University of Chicago (1996), and returning to Cambridge to complete his doctoral thesis on Victorian civic pride (2000). After working on the 1997 General Election campaign, he became a Special Adviser to Science Minister Lord Sainsbury (1997-2000), Associate Fellow at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Between 2001-2010, Tristram combined his post as Senior Lecturer in British History at Queen Mary, University of London with work as a history broadcaster, presenting over fifteen radio and television programmes for the BBC and Channel 4. In addition to making regular contributions to The Guardian and The Observer, he is also the author of The English Civil War: At First Hand (2002), Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City (2004), and the award-winning biography, The Frock-coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (2009). During this period, Tristram also served as a Trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund, and the Centre for Cities think-tank.

Since entering Parliament, Tristram Hunt has focused on educational excellence; the regeneration needs of Stoke-on-Trent; the ceramics industry and energy intensive sector. He is a Trustee of the History of Parliament Trust and fellow of the Royal Historical Society.