David Miliband

The Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
In office May 2006 – present
Preceded by	Margaret Beckett
Constituency	South Shields
Majority	12,312 (40.8%)
Personal details
Born	15 July 1965
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Louise Shackelton
Website	www.DavidMiliband.info

David Wright Miliband (born London, 15 July 1965) is a British politician, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Labour Member of Parliament for the Tyne and Wear constituency of South Shields.

The press has reported on several efforts by members of the Blairite faction in the Labour Party to encourage him to stand against Gordon Brown for leadership of the party after the departure of Tony Blair[1]. Despite consistent and emphatic public declarations that he will support Brown, on February 8, 2007, Miliband made what was reported to be an ambiguous criticism of a potential future Brown premiership in a televised interview[2]. Others saw it as a statement of the nature of the public's attitude towards leading politicans while they are in office and how once a Prime Minister has retired, people generally view them in a more postive light.

However, Miliband sees himself as playing a key role in a Brown administration and seems extremely unlikely to challenge Brown, having consistently ruled himself out of running for leader when Blair departs. He is seen as Labour's leading 'Next Generation' politician, and his support for Brown signals a concerted attempt by Labour's 30 and 40-somethings to ensure the Blairite/Brownite split does not persist in their generation. Indeed the roles of David Miliband, once Blair's head of policy, and his brother Ed Miliband, once Brown's head of policy, could well be to heal this rift: there are very few differences of ideological position or even nuance between them.

Early life and education

He is the elder son of Marion Kozak and the late Marxist theoretician Ralph Miliband, a Belgian-Jewish refugee during the Second World War.

David was educated at schools in London, Leeds and Boston, US, before being educated at Haverstock Comprehensive School in North London.

He went on to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he got a first in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He then took a S.M. degree in Political Science in 1990 at MIT, where he was a Kennedy Scholar.

He joined the Institute for Public Policy Research as a policy analyst in 1989, before becoming Tony Blair's Head of Policy in 1994. He was a major contributor to Labour's manifesto for the 1997 general election. After Labour's landslide victory in that election, Blair made him the de facto head of Downing Street's Policy Unit.

From 1989-1994 he worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and from 1992-4 was Secretary of the Commission on Social Justice. His first job was for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

Parliamentary career

He was first elected to Parliament in 2001 election for the Labour Stronghold of South Shields.

Just over a year being an MP he was appointed as 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.

Minister of State for Communities and Local Government

Following Labour's third consecutive election victory on May 6, 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. However Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, was officially in charge of these portfolios. Miliband was not given the title Secretary of State, although he was a full member of the Cabinet.

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

On May 5 2006 following the local elections Tony Blair made a major cabinet reshuffle[3] - his biggest since coming to power - in which Miliband replaced Margaret Beckett as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This post meant leading Defra. Miliband believes that agriculture is important for Great Britain’s cultural heritage, economy and society and also for the environment. He believes disease control should be balanced with animal welfare. He attaches importance to reaching a “Fair balance” between consumers, farmers, manufacturers and retailers. He feels the European Union and the World Trade Organization affect power relations between British and foreign farmers. [4]

On 18 August 2006, Miliband initiated the launch of a wiki to form an environmental contract. However, it was subsequently linked to by blogger Guido Fawkes, and mocked, after which further edits by guest users were temporarily prevented. The wiki is now available again, although registration is now required.

On 7 January 2007 he sparked minor discontent by saying that there is no evidence that organic food is better than conventionally grown produce[5], though has since clarified that he was referring specifically to health benefits.[6]

Solutions to control the climate

Mr Miliband has floated the idea of every citizen being issued with a "Carbon Credit Card" to reduce personal carbon thrift. Mr Miliband claims that individuals had to be empowered to tackle climate change - "the mass mobilising movement of our age". [7]

Labour leadership contender?

While Miliband would be the favoured candidate of Blairites to challenge Gordon Brown in a leadership contest, he has been absolutely categorical and emphatic in his support for Brown. The New Statesman mocked Miliband for this, headlining an interview 'It must be Gordon, Gordon, Gordon' [8] 'And, in order to avoid any doubt, he names the next leader again. "We can have an energising, refreshing transition and that's why what I would say: the transition to Gordon - just to underline - the transition to Gordon Brown, the smooth transition to Gordon Brown, the energising, refreshing transition to Gordon Brown - not to anyone else - is a transition that is about ideas and values more than about dates."

This has not prevented columnists - notably Mary Ann Sieghart of The Times and Martin Kettle of The Guardian - from promoting the idea of a Miliband challenge to Brown. Labour backbencher and ex-Minister Frank Field called publicly for Miliband to run in a Guardian commentary on 15th February 2007.

However, Miliband has emphasised a generational division between himself as Blairites such as John Reid, Alan Milburn, Stephen Byers, John Hutton and Peter Mandelson, who are long-standing critics of Gordon Brown and so largely feel they have nothing to lose from an 'Anybody But Gordon' approach.

Miliband is likely to play a very significant role under Brown and can be seen as a leader of a different set of 'next generation' Blairite Ministers - a 'Blairites for Brown' group - (who political commentators usually identify as Miliband, Andy Burnham, James Purnell and Liam Byrne, who are all seen as likely to prosper under Brown). There is very little difference indeed between this group and Brownites of this generation, notably Ed Miliband, and the husband and wife ministerial couple of Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper.

So Miliband's support for Brown is a significant signal of an effort among this generation to prevent the Blairite/Brownite division continuing, as most see of them see this as having been more a product of personal historic rivalries arising from the 1994 leadership deal than rather limited policy differences over public services. To persist with a factional division between E.Miliband, Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper against D.Miliband, James Purnell and Liam Byrne would be to take what Freud called the 'narcisssism of minor differences' to extreme lengths - though in this Miliband may be seen to represent a somewhat more progressive 'left' of the Blairite camp, compared to say John Reid or Peter Mandelson. (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'. [9]

However, the Miliband generation may well come to be united in an effort to, firstly, have more confidence to stress Labour's core egalitarian mission (a 'Brownite' emphasis on the ultimate ends of progressive politics), while being sceptical of the extent to which the state can deliver empowerment (a 'Blairite' concern about means), and Miliband in particular is likely to stress the need for the party to continue to revise and modernise its thinking, particularly emphasising bottom-up rather than top-down approaches to government and public services.

Trivia

• Milliband is a 'member' of the 'Primrose Hill Gang', a loose network of young Labour Politicians and Advisors that suposedly looks beyond Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for the future of the Labour Party. Other members of the group include Milliband's brother Ed Milliband, Douglas Alexander, Pat McFadden, James Purnell, Jim Murphy, Andy Burnham, Matthew Taylor, Geoff Mulgan and Patrick Diamond.
• As a protégé of Tony Blair, Miliband is regarded by some as a possible future Prime Minister. On a BBC Radio Five Live World Cup phone-in on 29 June 2006, Tony Blair was asked if he had a "Wayne Rooney" figure in his cabinet - he gave Miliband as his affirmative answer.
• In an article published by the Daily Mail, Cherie Blair allegedly stated that Miliband is her husband's preferred successor instead of Gordon Brown. [10]
• Miliband was the first British cabinet member to have a blog, although claims of excessive cost to taxpayer have proved controversial.
• His younger brother, the economist Ed Miliband is the Member of Parliament for Doncaster North.
• Both his paternal grandparents lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw, before his grandfather, Samuel Miliband, joined the invading Red Army in the Polish-Soviet War. [11] [12]
• His wife, Louise Shackelton, is a violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra.
• Miliband adopted a son in the United States in December 2004.
• His first career ambition was to be a bus conductor.
• He got a 'D' on A-level physics.
• He was given the nickname "Brains" (after the Thunderbirds character) by Alastair Campbell

See also

• Cabinet of the United Kingdom
• List of British Jewish politicians

External links

• David Miliband's official blog
• David Miliband's personal website
• ePolitix - David Miliband
• Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – The Rt Hon David Miliband MP official biography
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: David Miliband MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com – David Miliband MP
• "One planet farming" at the Royal Agricultural Show, Monday 3 July 2006

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