“BRITAIN’S most unpopular MP” Tristram Hunt revealed yesterday he was quitting his “intensely frustrating” job in a safe seat to become the director of the V&A Museum — more than doubling his salary.

Blairite backbencher Mr Hunt, who is the son of a baron, became the second Labour MP to quit politics recently following Jamie Reed’s decision before Christmas that he would no longer be representing Copeland at the end of January after deciding to rejoin nuclear company Sellafield for more money.

Bitter Corbyn critic Mr Hunt was first elected to represent Stoke-on-Trent in 2010. He had been imposed on the safe Labour seat by party head office as a favour to arch-Blairite Peter Mandelson.

He had ambitions to lead Labour after Ed Miliband quit following the 2015 general election defeat, but refused to be in the shadow cabinet when Jeremy Corbyn became leader.

In 2015, he was voted in with the same share of the vote — but this time on just a 50 per cent turnout, leading the New Statesman to label him “Britain’s most unpopular MP.”

Mr Hunt set up the Labour for the Common Good group with fellow Blairite has-been Chuka Umunna, which is said to have been known in Westminster as “the resistance.”

In his new role he will likely more that double his MP’s salary of £74,962 — his V&A predecessor Martin Roth earned a salary of up to £150,000 as part of a total package worth up to £230,000 in 2015-16.

Mr Corbyn congratulated Mr Hunt and thanked him for his service after his V&A appointment had been approved by Prime Minister Theresa May and Culture Secretary Karen Bradley.

However Mr Hunt has been criticised over his position supporting entry charges for museums after previously suggesting they should be reinstated, commenting that scrapping them “didn’t achieve much.”

Entrance fees to museums, including the V&A, were abolished by Labour in 2001 to make culture and heritage open to all.

The current Labour deputy leader Tom Watson called Mr Hunt “a scab” two years ago after the latter crossed a picket line at Queen Mary, University of London, to give a lecture on Marxism.

Mr Watson said yesterday: “I am disappointed to see a talented MP like Tristram step down. His departure will be keenly felt by parliament and by the Labour Party.”

Mr Hunt’s privileged upbringing — as son of Lord Hunt of Chesterton — and academic career led some, including himself, to question whether he was the right person to garner enough support to make it on a leadership ballot paper.

Mr Hunt is also notoriously close to right-wing Labour donor Lord Sainsbury, who he has called a “secretive billionaire” who “dominates” Labour’s “unaccountable” Progress faction.

Announcing he was quitting politics, Mr Hunt said his time in Parliament had been “deeply rewarding and intensely frustrating” and told of “harrowing effects of poverty and inequality” he had seen as an MP.

It has been suggested that Ukip leader Paul Nuttall could stand as a candidate for the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election on January 21 — a seat Labour has held since it was created in 1950.