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Does David Miliband want to lead the Labour party? It's the question that hovers uncomfortably close, from his point of view, on a trip to New York and Washington overshadowed by Labour's domestic turmoil.
In a wide-ranging, exclusive interview with the Standard, the Foreign Secretary issues a rallying cry to Labour to “raise its game” and engage in a “new can-do, confident spirit” to win back disaffected voters.
Mr Miliband said: “Cynicism and defeatism are the enemies we need to confront. We have the right values and instincts to win, but we mustn't underestimate the degree of dissatisfaction.”
He expects Gordon Brown to remain leader until the next election, but his forthright comments about morale and direction in Labour will be seen as his clearest indication yet that he is intending to run for the top job.
“The lessons of the Government's handling of the economic crisis are that we need a radical and modern approach to the challenges we face,” he added.
On a visit including meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Pakistani president, Mr Miliband scotched rumours he could be set for a reshuffle move in the summer.
He said: “What I want is to stay in this job, which I love. I've only got another four years to go till I pass Ernie Bevin's record in the job.”
It's a very Milibandish trait, wrapping up a political point in a joke, but he has just made clear in his own way that he is digging in his heels. He's here to work with the Secretary of State on Afghanistan and the attempts to revive a Middle East process. But the subject that dogs him is of Labour's unravelling grip on power — and the sense of deepening disgust at the revelation of MPs' Arthur Daley entrepreneurship with expenses claims.
He speaks for the penitent tendency. “We have to show we get it,” he says, of the punitive public mood. “The next election is not just a matter of votes and who wins and loses: it's a matter of honour as well.
“There's a collective sense that we have let people down. We can't make excuses; we have to show we understand that.” That's a sorry then? “Of course it is. Absolutely.”
The next election is widely predicted as a bloodbath for Labour. “It is rescuable,” he insists. “New Labour is not dead.” The polls suggest otherwise.
“Well, it's like taking a weather check in the middle of a tornado,” is the reply.
Still trim and youthful, he now has telltale criss-cross lines of stress on his forehead. He courteously namechecks Mr Brown as “doing the right thing” — on big issues.
But the expenses scandal, he knows, is another millstone round Labour's electoral neck. His own accounts contain a note from his gardener querying the need for pot plants in his South Shields constituency garden (“I immediately agreed we didn't need them and that was that”) and a claim for a pushchair for one of his children (“I made an error on that”).
He adds: “No one can overstate the fury and contempt associated with the expenses row.”
I point out that the Speaker, Michael Martin, is quoted as saying he wanted to “get what is owed to me” — and get tightly folded arms and a grimace in return. “We now have to fight for our reputation, so we all have to face up to the damage that's been done: all of us.”
As the long-standing lead candidate of the Blairite wing of Labour for the leadership post-Brown, he had a bruising experience last autumn, when the spotlight first fell on him and he was pilloried as unready — photographed ineptly holding a banana. How much did the mockery wound?
“Er, well, I did learn from it: for one thing, finger foods are out — and beware fruit! You do live and learn as you go on. That's the thing about politics: just when you think it can't get any better, it does, and when you think it can't get any worse, it sometimes does that too.”
So, what's it to be: are you up for it? “I really won't go there. I rule nothing in and nothing out and it's invidious, where we are now, to talk about it.” He's talking fast at this point: almost breathlessly. So he's not counting himself out? “I said what I meant.”
Then he segues straight into what sounds suspiciously like his own patented recovery programme for the party. “The three questions to my mind are: can we win, where are we heading and what is our vision to get there? We can only answer the first question when we're clear with the voters about the other two.
“I do want to use this interview to say, I think our progressive values are still our strength: but we have to govern well and we need a compelling prospectus for the future of the country as well.”
He and his musician wife Louise have two adopted boys and he is intense about privacy. There's not a lot of showcasing of family life. But maybe top politicians need to let voters in closer to their home life so as not to come across, as Miliband can, as aloof and a tad distant?
“It's true I do want to protect my children: I love them so much, it's a natural thing to do. And there's also a consideration of how they grow up.”
His background, as the son of a leading socialist intellectual, is solidly progressive North London. At one point he mention's “Ed” doing a great job on climate change, without apparently considering it noteworthy that he has a brother in the Cabinet. He's not spent a lot of time away from Planet Labour.
He's met David Cameron three times — including at a Radiohead concert. They're direct Oxford contemporaries, who could well could end up as Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition.
“We have good banter,” he says. “Likeability's not Cameron's problem. What irks me is that he has taken the idea of a progressive society, a Labour aim in public policy, not a Tory one, and now he says that it is a Conservative goal. It's not credible.”
He is still close to his old Downing Street boss Tony Blair, but makes the point that they talk mainly on the phone and on international issues. “We're not going to reinvent some Buddha of 1997 to worship,” he says.
“If we came out with a 1997 pledge card I don't think people would be very impressed.”
Has he though about what could happen to Labour in opposition? “Every moment in Opposition is completely futile,” he says with a sigh. “That's why we have to fight for every vote. Things can change quickly.”
He's been reading biographies of great US leaders and alludes to the 19th-century Democrat Andrew Jackson. “Mind you,” he adds, with a mischievous glint, “he went on to be President.”
I boarded the plane unsure as to whether Mr Miliband really does want the job of Labour leader, whenever the moment of reckoning does come. By the end of his visit, there could be no doubt.
Reader views (28)
What an extraordinarily narcissistic and odious quote re: longevity/ beating Ernie Bevin's 'record'. Is this why you entered politics Mr Miliband? Is this why we are wasting tax payers money - so you can beat records? Do you really not get the fact the country is furious about self-serving MP's?
- Total Disbelief, London, 09/06/2009 08:18
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I would welcome this odious little squirt as leader of the labour party - it would ensure only mums who felt sorry for him would vote labour.
Self-serving, with zero experience of the real world, flying round the world on private jets to irritate and annoy real leaders and statesmen, I wonder how much damage he's done already.
He looks as if he's in the Commons on "bring your kids to work" day....
- Johnny, Beijing, China, 09/06/2009 07:18
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The poor chap has 'something of the night' about him. As a foreign secretary he looks hopelesly out of his debt and only got the job by promising that he would not stand against Brown when the latter took over from Blair.
- Martin, London, 09/06/2009 07:18
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I am old enough to have heard "visions for Labour" from Attlee, Bevan, Crosland, Gaitskill, Wilson and Healey...all the way through to Foot, Kinnock, Smith, Blair and Brown. All talking tripe and, given the chance (which thank The Lord, some weren't), all leading this country to ruin.
Now we have little Miliband (major) pouring out the latest variation of the same old song.
A word to the wise David, I think we've had enough "visions' from Labour to last us five lifetimes.
- Steve, London, UK, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Goody, Goody Gumdrops. At last, somebody from the slime of New Labour has the 'cojones' to possibly make a real challenge to Dear Leader Pa Broone!!
Anything that will tear the Nues ZaNuLab-Pf Partie apart even quicker than a good shoe-ing up theer collective backsides.
- B Clarke, East Anglia Area UK, 09/06/2009 07:18
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slime ball! I have met him on a few occasions and he is a slippery little toad. Never says anything in particular, and wears a permanently smug expression. What is Tony Benn doing these days ? Can we not ask him to return to politics. Remember when Labour MP's had ethics and did the job because they cared about their voters ? This NuLabour are full of middleclass toffs pretending to "get down" with the common man. Makes my flesh crawl!!!!
- Maya, London, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Labour is dead in the water mate. God could run as leader of the Labour party and they still wouldn't win another election, although this country could sure do with a few miracles at the moment.
- Sue, Orpington, Kent, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Sad how much effort these useless brainless hypocrites are ready to put in, just to avoid working for a living.
- Lezli Taubler, London / UK, 09/06/2009 07:18
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"We have the right values and instincts to win"
Right values? Huh? Instincts to win? Socialism requires a peasant class to garner support - victims of "Them", you know, anyone who isn't part of the Champagne Socialist elite, the new aristocracy, and those they allow to prosper. Oppressed victims need someone to blame, after all, and they need benevolent parent figures to sort things out for them - right? Poor fellows can't think for themselves after all, can they - they're only peasants when all's said and done. Yeah, right!
All they seem to have managed to get right, for themselves, is the creation of a larger peasant class.
"...but we mustn't underestimate the degree of dissatisfaction.” This shifty lot have done nothing BUT underestimate the dissatisfaction of the voting public. Something that they forget - peasants occasionally pick up their shovels and their hoes and demand an accounting from those who forget what they're there for.
- Rogan, Irving, 09/06/2009 07:18
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I'm a mid-life British male and I don't fancy Kate Winslet either. I find her one dimensional with the most insincere smile I've ever seen!
- Chris, Brighton, England., 09/06/2009 07:18
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Milkybar kid silly!
- Tom, St. Albans, 09/06/2009 07:18
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This man is a oaf - who has never worked for 1 day in his wretched life.
- Sean Dempsey, hayes london., 09/06/2009 07:18
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Miliband should go and have a wee lie down, do him the world of good.
- Alex., brighton, 09/06/2009 07:18
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He is a little creep, should get the leadership easily
- Peter Woods, UK, 09/06/2009 07:18
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All talk and no substance. No thanks!
- Goggs, London, 09/06/2009 07:18
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You must be joking! He is charmless and awful! With him as leader the Tories would be in for decades!
- Lewis, London, 09/06/2009 07:18
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It is pointless bidding to become leader of the labour party. The party is "no more" - and come the next election there will not be one member who will get a single vote. He ought to take a trip down to his nearest job centre.
- R.F., Yorks, UK, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Please save us from this dreadful little weasel.
- Andy, london, 09/06/2009 07:18
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This repulsive little hypocrite was last heard of lecturing adult leaders in India and Sri Lanka about going easy on terrorists - after he had voted in favour of the Iraq war! Do us a favour
- Robert, ex-londoner, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Who?
- John, Dorset, UK, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Once your bed is infested with flea's; all that sleep in the bed, will be covered in flea's.
Better to burn the bed and be done with all the flea's in one go.
- Mickyinlondon, london, 09/06/2009 07:18
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What a spineless, patronising, talentless and slimy weasel David Millibland really is.
Oh please Mr.Millipede keep saying that you have aspirations to take over the dictatorship from Gormless Clown - that way the Conservatives won't even have to do anything to get back in and start repairing the damage done by ZaNuLiebour.
- A.Non Pc, London,UK, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Another educated idiot , all brains but no sense!!
- Scotty, Cambridge UK, 09/06/2009 07:18
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When the Georgia crisis happened a while ago, Miliband jetted off to Georgia to give his support. A Russian friend of mine asked me at the time, "why have you sent a boy to do a mans job, does he really think we are going to take him seriously and listen to him?"
I couldnt have agreed more.
- Jc, London, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Marmaduke Miliband leader of the Labour Party?..Is this a joke?..We already have Cameron doing Blair Mk.2..Miliband has zero gravitas and comes across as the ultimate career politician.Just because he somehow ended up in high office,has intellect,does not make him a leader.Lets be honest,if he quit politics,who in the Labour party would miss his input?..Exactly..i rest my case..
- Jonnie Of Brixton, brixton,london,england, 09/06/2009 07:18
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He an utterly useless little worm.
- Don, London, 09/06/2009 07:18
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He always manages to say so much and yet so little.
- Robert, St Margarets, 09/06/2009 07:18
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Is Mandy positioning Brown for failure over the Royal Mail, and positioning Miliband as heir apparent? (Failure Mandy knows a LOT about in his several incarnations in UK "government" as well as during his abysmal stint in Brussels..ironic given Gordy's hypocritical whining on " not rewarding failure"!)
- A Britt, Brussels, Belgium, 09/06/2009 07:18
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