Dave trashing Chukapedia was the highlight of last week’s Queen’s Speech debate. In yesterday’s Sun column Guido revealed how Number 10 came up with the killer line during their pre-debate prep. John Hayes, Dave’s new senior parliamentary adviser, was in favour of a subtle, understated approach. Perhaps gently chastising Chuka as simply a typical Labour MP.  The Prime Minister was having none of it, Guido hears, banging the table and exclaiming: “No! Let’s get him.” Dave himself then came up with the body blow: “Can we change our Wikipedia entry? Yes we can!” Chuka’s face showed he made the right call…

Clearly Chuka has been told he needs to learn how to laugh at himself after Wednesday. These will never get old…

UPDATE: Chris Pincher’s powers of prediction are second to none:

It was an open goal for the Prime Minister when he came face to face with Chuka “Barack” Umunna in the Commons. Did he score? Yes he did…

UPDATE: 

Standard columnist Anne McElvoy’s astute observation last night got Guido thinking:

Does any gentleman at Westminster wear a watch as large as Chuka Umunna? No excuse for tardiness.—
anne mcelvoy (@annemcelvoy) April 30, 2013

Turns out Chuka is a sucker for clocks and has quite a collection of over-priced, over-sized watches. First there’s his blingy chrome number:

Then there’s his more community-friendly leather-strapped classic:

Which evidently keeps you looking super cool when holding a mic:

Or when you’re the cover star of a politics mag. Make sure the camera can see it:

Trashy Will Smith doesn’t even wear a watch:

But as anyone knows, if you buy your suits on Savile Row, accessorising with a matching watch is a must:

And finally, if in doubt, buy one that is literally wider than your wrist:

We’re not winding you up. Everything you’ve heard is true, Chuka really does have a big watch…

Two-faced Chuka Umunna has been getting on his high horse about how terribly unfair private schools are at the Times CEO Africa summit today:

Chuka Umanna suggests private schooling can damage social mobility. Kimmelman: our customers exclusively earn under $2 a day #timesceoafrica—
Juliet Samuel (@CitySamuel) April 30, 2013

That would be the same Chuka Umunna who was deputy head boy of £4,700-a-term independent day school St Dunstan’s College. The same Chuka Umunna who says being privately schooled by the likes of Anthony Seldon “had a massive impact on me” as he began to “fly academically”. The same Chuka Umunna who says he “wouldn’t rule out“ sending his own children to a private school. Presumably the local comp is a bit too trashy…

Still Chuka won’t be drawn on his million pound Ibiza hideaway, his wikipedia editing or his comments about “trashy” Londoners. His attempts to defend his man of the people credentials are less than subtle, however. Last night Harrison organised a Commons trip for his constituents, keenly tweeting cosy photos of himself with “Peter, the landlord to my constituency office’s local pub”, “Alper, owner of El Chico’s restaurant and the Orient Express takeaway”, Streatham’s town centre manager and staff at his local JobCentre:

Earlier in the day he was hanging out with super-cool multi-millionaire entrepreneur and non-domiciled tax exile James Caan.

You know where he’d rather be…

Hardly ideal for a Shadow Business Secretary to be slammed by business leaders for talking down their industry. The owners of some of London’s top clubs have expressed their disappointment at two-faced Chuka’s snobbery this morning in a letter to the Standard:

Dear Sir,

We were appalled to read last week that Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary and London MP Chuka Umunna has branded London clubs and nightspots as ‘full of trash and C-list wannabes.’

The UK’s night-time economy is worth £66 billion every year; Mr. Umunna criticises an industry which brings in millions of pounds to the capital and provides thousands of jobs. As a London MP, let alone Shadow Business Secretary, it beggars belief that he would chose to condemn these businesses rather than champion them. Mr. Umunna is clearly still not on the side of the British businesses whose success is so vital to the economic recovery.

Mr. Umunna’s knowledge of London’s nightlife is also sorely lacking. If he had visited the area he would know that the West End plays host to a wide variety of exciting clubs and bars. To correct this blindspot in his life experience, we extend an invitation for Mr. Umunna to see for himself the vibrant nightlife the capital has to offer and visit one of our establishments on a night of his choice.

Yours faithfully,

Khalid Virani (Owner of Raffles)
Julien Burlo (Owner of 151)
Joel Grey (Director of JuJu and SOUK)
Alex Nicholl (Owner of Jalouse)

Ouch…

Britain’s Barack Obama has his own White House. That is the name of two-faced Chuka Umunna’s trash-free £1 million Ibiza hideaway. His people have refused to deny that the jet-setting Streatham MP camped out at the villa, complete with a tree-lined pool, as the trash story broke last week. The Sun have visited the six-bedroom pad, right next to Ibiza’s supercool party zones. Apparently Chuka visits regularly “with pals”, locals say their sometime neighbour is “discreet”. This is two-faced Chuka’s secret life in Ibiza, a far cry from his trashy constituents back home…

You can read all Guido’s stories on Chuka here.

PR Week’s weekly ‘Hit or Miss’ award have given Chuka Umunna a great big “MISS” badge for his handling of the recent London is “full of trash” and Wikipedia editing stories:

“…to put out a quote including ‘no recollection’ for this particular situation is a PR crime. Phrases such as ‘I can’t say for certain’ almost scream out ‘yes it was me, I did it’, although, of course I, like anyone else, can’t actually say for certain that he did. It provides ammunition for the opposition, who have been gifted a PR opportunity, all of which adds up to a far more entertaining story. But people wouldn’t be shocked if many politicians’ teams are doing the same thing. As for the Obama remarks: saying one thing in public and doing another in private (and then hiding behind anonymous posts) will not help his long-term credibility and trust factor with the public. The misjudged comment in response to the situation simply added a lot of fuel to the fire.”

Guido could not agree more.

Tory MPs seem to be enjoying the Shadow Business Secretary’s discomfort. Nigel Adams weighs in again:

“Chuka Umunna should be upfront and tell the public exactly who is doing what with his online activity. If these latest revelations are true, many will question his judgement. Perhaps Chuka should spend less time bigging up his leadership credentials and trawling the internet and more time coming up with some ideas for Labour’s business policies which are currently non existent.”

Nadhim Zahawi tweeted Guido to add: “if true Chuka should just admit it. He is mad to attempt to hide it. It’s the cover-up that always hurts the most.” Keith Simpson told the Standard earlier: “…the trouble with changing one’s own profile page on Wikipedia is that it’s rather like an internet face-lift; you can always see the stretch marks.” Chuka’s credibility is certainly being stretched…

When Chuka was fronted about using a pseudonym to promote himself as Britain’s Barack Obama on Wikipedia back in 2008, he went into face-saving denial mode, claiming “I don’t have any recollection of that log-in or any of the changes. But I can’t say for certain that someone with my campaign did not set up that log-in.” The Telegraph added that “sources close to Mr Umunna said it was possible that one of his campaign team in 2007, when he was trying to be selected to be Labour’s candidate for Streatham in the 2010 general election, set up the page.” But someone was telling porkies…

Today it is revealed that the reference to Chuka being Britain’s Barack Obama was made in January 2008 by IP 83.105.87.81. The IP address of law firm Rochman Landau LLP. As Chuka’s extensive Wikipedia page tells us, that is where he worked in January 2008. He tried to blame a mythical campaign aide and has been caught red handed. There is being two faced and then there is simple dishonesty…

As the Standard reminds us:

“In a 2011 newspaper interview the Streatham MP said of the Obama comparison: “It annoys me a bit. You get lazy journalists and the odd blogger who’ll suggest that I fancy myself as ‘Britain’s Obama’ and that I seek to encourage the comparison. It’s never been something I’ve encouraged.”

Yeah right.