John Denham is playing the long game. The Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills has maintained a low profile during the Government's recent difficulties, keeping out of the in-fighting and avoiding public comment.

But taking a back seat is not in his nature. His instinct is to speak his mind. He is known to have a temper and can be abrasive with civil servants and journalists. He resigned over the Iraq war and appeared to relish a spat last year with Oxbridge dons, whom he accused of showing “social bias” against the poor, leading to a “huge waste” of talent. Friends from his days at Southampton University, where he studied chemistry and was president of the students' union, say that his defining feature was “ambition”.

Mr Denham's idea for graduate internships came as an instant response this year to dire predictions of graduate unemployment. A subsequent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that 49 per cent of companies will not hire students finishing courses this year.

There was virtually no prior consultation with interested parties and employers were given the distinct impression that the Government would subsidise internships. What finally emerged was little more than an internet service, matching graduates with employers.

The Government is pinning its hopes on the scheme and appears to have few alternatives. Three public sector graduate recruitment schemes — Teach First, the Civil Service Fast Track and the NHS management scheme — are being promoted to this year's final-year students in a glossy brochure being mailed to all graduating students, even though applications for all three of them have already closed.

Mr Denham hopes that the effects of rising graduate unemployment will be mitigated by a rise in the numbers staying on for postgraduate courses and taking up places on a separate volunteering scheme, as well as by the internship programme.

Mr Denham, 56, was head of youth affairs at the British Youth Council from 1979 until 1983. Before becoming MP for Southampton Itchen in 1992, he worked for aid agencies, including War on Want. In the Blair government he was a minister at the Department for Social Security before moving to the Department of Health in 1999. A father of three, he is a season ticket-holder at Southampton FC.