David Miliband

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The Right Honourable
David Miliband

MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Assumed office
28 June 2007
Prime MinisterGordon Brown
Preceded byMargaret Beckett
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
In office
05 May 2006 – 27 June 2007
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byMargaret Beckett
Succeeded byHilary Benn
Member of Parliament
for South Shields
Assumed office
07 June 2001
Preceded byDavid Clark
Majority12,312 (41%)
Personal details
Born (1965-07-15) 15 July 1965 (age 58)
London, England, UK
Political partyLabour
SpouseLouise Shackelton
Alma materCorpus Christi College, Oxford
Websitedavidmiliband.info

David Wright Miliband (born 15 July 1965) is a British politician who is the current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Member of Parliament for the constituency of South Shields.[2]

Born in London and majoring in politics at universities in England and the US, David Miliband's early career was as a policy analyst at the Institute for Public Policy Research. At 29, Miliband became Tony Blair's Head of Policy whilst the Labour Party was then in opposition and was a major contributor to Labour's manifesto for the 1997 general election which brought the party to power. Blair made him head of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit from 1997 to 2001, following which Miliband was elected to parliament for the north-east England seat of South Shields.

Miliband spent the next several years in various junior ministerial posts in the British government, including at the Department for Education and Skills, before becoming Environment secretary. His tenure in this post saw climate change consolidated as a priority for UK policymakers. On the succession of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, Miliband was promoted to Foreign Secretary, at 41, the youngest person to hold the position in 30 years.

Miliband is a social democrat and seen as Blairite in terms of advocating choice in public services. He is generally believed to be on the left of the New Labour project, advocating better action on the environment, higher public spending and a more Pro-European foreign policy. He is the current favourite to succeed Brown as leader of the Labour Party.[3]

Early life

Family

Born in London, David Miliband is the elder son of Polish-born Marion Kozak and the late Belgian-born Marxist theoretician Ralph Miliband. He has two brothers, both musicians, Glenn Miliband and Steve Miliband.

Both paternal grandparents lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw, before his grandfather, Samuel Miliband, joined the Red Army in the Polish-Soviet War, and after the war moved to Belgium. Hitler’s invasion of Belgium in May 1940 as part of the Nazis’ Western Offensive split the Miliband family in half: Ralph and father Samuel fled to England, while Ralph's mother Renée and baby sister Nan stayed behind for the duration of the war. They were not reunited until 1950.[4]

Education

David Miliband was educated at schools in London, Benton Park School in Leeds and Boston, Massachusetts before being educated at Haverstock Comprehensive School in North London, where he obtained a Grade 'D' in Physics A-level, and 3 Grade 'B's.[5] Despite these results being lower than the normal entry requirements, via a scheme for children from deprived backgrounds, he was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he achieved first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He then took an S.M. degree in Political Science in 1990 at MIT, where he was a Kennedy Scholar.

Employment

As a child, David Miliband's first career ambition was to be a bus conductor.[6]

However, Miliband's actual first job was for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

From 1989 to 1994, David Miliband worked as a Research Fellow and policy analyst at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). He was appointed Secretary of the IPPR's Commission on Social Justice upon its foundation in 1992 by the then leader of the Labour Party, John Smith.[7]

Political journey

In 1994 Miliband became Tony Blair's Head of Policy and was a major contributor to Labour's manifesto for the 1997 general election. After Labour's victory in that election, Blair made him the de facto Head of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit, a position which he held until the 2001 election. He was given the nickname "Brains" by Alastair Campbell, after the Thunderbirds character.[8] In the 2001 general election he was elected to Parliament for the Labour stronghold of South Shields. After a year as a backbench MP he was appointed Schools Minister, a junior minister in the Department for Education and Skills in June 2002. On 15 December 2004, in the reshuffle following the resignation of David Blunkett, he replaced Ruth Kelly as a Cabinet Office Minister.

Following Labour's third consecutive election victory in May 2005, he was promoted to the Cabinet as Minister of State for Communities and Local Government, a newly created cabinet post with responsibility for housing, planning, regeneration and local government. Because Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, was officially in charge of these portfolios, Miliband was not given the title Secretary of State but remained a full member of the Cabinet.

Secretary of State at Defra

On May 5 2006 following the local elections Tony Blair made a major cabinet reshuffle in which Miliband replaced Margaret Beckett as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.[9] Miliband has said he believes agriculture is important for the UK’s cultural heritage, economy and society and also for the environment. He has said disease control should be balanced with animal welfare. He attaches importance to reaching a “fair balance” between consumers, farmers, manufacturers and retailers. Miliband also believes the European Union and the World Trade Organisation affect power relations between British and foreign farmers.[10]

He was the first British cabinet member to have a blog, though claims of excessive cost to taxpayer provoked some controversy.[11] In January 2007 Miliband sparked minor controversy by saying there was no evidence organic food was better than conventionally grown produce, though he later clarified he was referring specifically to health benefits.[12]

Miliband is an advocate for international awareness of climate change and believes the cooperation of all nations is needed for environmental reform. Miliband's focuses include food retail waste management and greenhouse gas emissions in agricultural industries. He believes that the EU should go further in two areas: a low carbon global economy and global action on climate change. He also wants Europe to increase its economic competitiveness. By switching over to a low carbon economy, he plans to tackle climate change. He hopes to ensure a stable price on energy by securing an energy source and announced the Government's plans to legislate for carbon reductions at the United Nations General Assembly.[13]

In August 2006, in an effort to put environmental reform into action, Miliband developed a place for a collaborative "environmental contract" to be developed on a Defra Wiki site. It was subsequently linked to by blogger Guido Fawkes, and mocked, after which further edits by guest users were temporarily prevented.[14] Miliband's emphasis on the necessity of an entirely cooperative effort to effectively instigate a low carbon lifestyle worldwide has led him to advocate an open dialogue among citizens about environmental issues through web-based blogging.[15] Whilst Environment Secretary, Miliband called for all 27 nations of the European Union to unify in backing proposals to cut harmful emissions by 30% by 2020.[16]

Miliband has floated the idea of every citizen being issued with a "Carbon Credit Card" to improve personal carbon thrift. Miliband claims individuals have to be empowered to tackle global warming — "the mass mobilising movement of our age".[17]

Foreign Secretary

On 28 June 2007, the day after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, Miliband was appointed Foreign Secretary. He is Britain's third youngest Foreign Secretary and the youngest person to be appointed to the post since David Owen (in office 21 February 1977 – 4 May 1979). Anthony Eden was assumed office at the age of 37 in 1935. David's younger brother, the economist Ed Miliband, is the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, making them the first siblings to serve together in Cabinet since Edward, Lord Stanley and his brother Oliver in 1938.

On the same day that Miliband was appointed Foreign Secretary, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) completed its four-year review by deciding to refer the case of Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, back for a second appeal against conviction. On 4 July 2007 Dr Hans Köchler, UN-appointed international observer at the Lockerbie trial, wrote to Miliband calling the SCCRC's decision "long overdue" and reiterating his demand for "a full and independent public inquiry of the Lockerbie case."[18] Köchler wrote again to Miliband on 21 July 2008 pointing out an error in the Libya page on the FCO's website concerning the verdict in the Lockerbie trial, and criticising Miliband's withholding of evidence in the ongoing appeal process.[19]

Miliband's first Foreign Office questions session as Foreign Secretary in July 2007 in the House of Commons was marked by the strong response he made to shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague's criticism of the proposed EU treaty:

"The Right Hon. Gentleman's memory has deserted him. When he first entered this House, he worked with 11 other members of the current shadow Cabinet and 22 current Conservative front-benchers to vote against a referendum on the Maastricht treaty, which involved a smaller transfer of power."

On the morning of 13 December 2007, Miliband stood in for Prime Minister, Gordon Brown at the official signing ceremony in Lisbon of the EU Reform Treaty, which was attended by all other European heads of government. Brown was otherwise engaged at the House of Commons, appearing before the Liaison Committee, and travelled to Portugal to sign the treaty in the afternoon.[20]

As Foreign Secretary Miliband has pleaded for Turkish entry into the European Union and in an apparent departure from perceived neutrality caused H.M. the Queen to present this argument at a State Dinner in Ankara on 13 May 2008.[citation needed]

Labour Party

Miliband has emphasised a generational division between himself and Blairites such as John Reid, Alan Milburn, Stephen Byers, John Hutton and Peter Mandelson, who are long-standing critics of prime minister Gordon Brown. Miliband is one of the "Primrose Hill Gang", a loose network of young Labour politicians and advisers that supposedly look beyond Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for the future of the Labour Party. Other members of the group include Miliband's brother Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Pat McFadden, James Purnell, Jim Murphy, Andy Burnham, Matthew Taylor, Geoff Mulgan and Patrick Diamond.

Miliband could be seen as a leader of a different set of "next generation" Blairite Ministers — a "Blairites for Brown" group — whom political commentators usually identify as David Miliband, Andy Burnham, James Purnell and Liam Byrne, several of whom have already prospered under Brown. There is reported to be little difference between this group and Brownites of the same generation, notably Ed Miliband, and the husband and wife ministerial couple of Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper.

Miliband's support for Brown has been seen as an effort among his generation to prevent the Blairite/Brownite division continuing as some Labour party members see this division as having been more a product of personal historic rivalries arising from the 1994 leadership deal, rather than limited policy differences over public services. Political commentator Andrew Rawnsley of The Observer wrote in 2002 that "He is on the Left of the New Labour spectrum. He is a believer — in a way that Blair is not entirely — in Continental social democracy".[8]

Leadership contender

On 30 July 2008, David Miliband wrote an article in The Guardian which, because it outlined the future of the Labour Party but made no mention of Gordon Brown, was widely interpreted as a leadership challenge to the Prime Minister.[21] The timing of its publication – coming just after Brown's departure on holiday at the start of the parliamentary summer recess, and while there was intense speculation about Brown's continuing leadership following Labour's defeat in the Glasgow East by-election the previous week – ensured that the article would have a big political impact.

In the following days two Labour MPs called on Brown to sack Miliband for his perceived disloyalty. Miliband, while refuting claims by his detractors that he was seeking to provoke an early leadership election, did not rule himself out of eventually running for the leadership of the party. Many grassroots supporters believe a Miliband-led Labour Party would tackle David Cameron's Conservatives more effectively, reaching out to voters in marginal seats as well as securing Labour's core support. The article has led to continuing speculation in the blog and print media that David Miliband is preparing a leadership challenge to Gordon Brown.[22][23]

Books

Miliband has edited two books:

  • Paying for Inequality: Economic Cost of Social Justice (edited with Andrew Glyn), Rivers Oram Press, 1994, ISBN 978-1-85-489059-7
  • Reinventing the Left, Polity Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-74-561391-8

Personal life

References

  1. ^ "While Blair converts to Catholicism, only 8 Ministers say they believe in God". Daily Mail. 2007-12-24. Retrieved 2007-12-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ "First Names in Brown Dream Team". Sky News. 2007-06-28. Retrieved 2007-06-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "Miliband : Has he got what it takes to be PM?". The Observer. 2008-08-03. Retrieved 2008-08-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  4. ^ "Biographies: Lipman, Miliband & Saville" (HTML). the lipman-miliband trust. 2007-08-15. Retrieved 2007-10-22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ "A Levels discussed" (HTML). BBC. 2003-08-17. Retrieved 2007-05-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ "About David" (HTML). Defra. 2006-01-01. Retrieved 2007-05-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ "Commission on Social Justice". IPPR. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
  8. ^ a b c "Heir to Blair?" (HTML). The Observer. 2002-10-20. Retrieved 2007-05-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ "Reshuffle seeks to rejuvenate" (HTML). BBC. 2006-05-05. Retrieved 2007-05-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "Speech by the Rt Hon. David Miliband MP - "One planet farming" at the Royal Agricultural Show, Monday 3 July 2006" (HTML). Defra. 2006-07-04. Retrieved 2007-05-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "£40,000 - the real cost of reading David's diary" (HTML). The Independent. 2006-06-16. Retrieved 2006-07-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) "Written Parliamentary Question on cost of blog" (HTML). Hansard. 2006-06-16. Retrieved 2006-09-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ "Miliband questions organic quality" (HTML). ePolitix.com. 2007-01-07. Retrieved 2007-05-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) See also: "Making the Most of Organic Food" (HTML). Defra. 2007-01-08. Retrieved 2007-05-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Miliband, David (6 June 2007). "Greening the American Dream". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) See also: United Nations General Assembly Session 62 Verbatim Report 9. A/62/PV.9 page 45. Mr. Miliband United Kingdom 27 September 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-12.
  14. ^ "Wiki Wickedness" (HTML). Global & General Nominees LLC. 2006-09-01. Retrieved 2006-09-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ "Defra website".
  16. ^ "'Now or never' for climate action".
  17. ^ "Carbon 'credit card' considered" (HTML). BBC. 2006-12-11. Retrieved 2007-05-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ "Dr Hans Köchler calls for public inquiry into Lockerbie case". See also: "UN observer calls for fresh Lockerbie probe".
  19. ^ ""Lockerbie Appeal : Making Haste Slowly", Mathaba News Network, 23 July 2008". "As international observer, appointed by the United Nations, at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands I am also concerned about the Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate which has been issued by you in connection with the new Appeal of the convicted Libyan national. Withholding of evidence from the Defence was one of the reasons why the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has referred Mr. Al-Megrahi’s case back to the High Court of Justiciary. The Appeal cannot go ahead if the Government of the United Kingdom, through the PII certificate issued by you, denies the Defence the right (also guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights) to have access to a document which is in the possession of the Prosecution. How can there be equality of arms in such a situation? How can the independence of the judiciary be upheld if the executive power interferes into the appeal process in such a way?."
  20. ^ "Miliband plays stand-in at lavish EU relaunch".
  21. ^ "Against all odds we can still win, on a platform for change" (HTML). guardian.co.uk. 2008-07-29. Retrieved 2008-08-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ "Miliband calms leadership talk". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-08-02.
  23. ^ "Miliband denies 'leadership' bid" (HTML). bbc.co.uk. 2008-07-30. Retrieved 2008-08-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ Miliband makes his mark, Vivienne Russell, www.PublicFinance.co.uk
  25. ^ "Blair's lieutenant adopts American baby" (HTML). FamilyKB. 2004-12-31. Retrieved 2007-05-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) "David Miliband adopts second son". BBC News Online. 2007-10-29. Retrieved 2007-10-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  26. ^ "South Shields FC". BBC. Retrieved 2008-07-30.
  27. ^ "While Blair converts to Catholicism, only 8 Ministers say they believe in God". Daily Mail. 2007-12-24. Retrieved 2007-12-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to David Miliband.


Parliament of the United Kingdom

Template:Incumbent succession box

Political offices
Preceded by
Unknown
 Minister of State for Schools
2002–2004 		Succeeded by
New creation Minister of State for Communities and Local Government
2005–2006 		Succeeded byas Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Preceded by Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
2006–2007 		Succeeded by
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
2007–present 		Incumbent

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