Dear Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Signed, Liam Byrne

(Outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May 2010)
.
.

Friday 28 May 2010

Labour leadership #1

Mr David Miliband

Born 15th July 1965, brother to Edward Miliband.
Studied PPE at Corpus Christi, Oxford, with further studies in Political Science at MIT.
Worked at the Institute of Policy Studies Institute for Public Policy Research*.
Became Mr Blair's Head of Policy in 1994.
First elected to Parliament in 2001.
Promoted to Schools Minister in 2002, swiftly followed by posts as Cabinet Office Minister, then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
In 2007 he was appointed Foreign Secretary and took his charms overseas.

He managed to annoy :-

Russia - in September 2008, when he was
subjected to 'F-word' tirade from Russian foreign minister Mr Lavrov [who] objected to being lectured by the British.
It would seem that Mr Lavrov also
asked Mr Miliband in equally blunt terms whether he knew anything of Russia's history
and
It is not the first time Mr Miliband and his Russian counterpart have clashed. Last year, Mr Lavrov retaliated to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from London by closing British Council offices in Russia.
You'd think, maybe, Mr Miliband would have been a bit more careful after that, but no.

India, January 2009
the Foreign Secretary's visit to India last week was labelled a "disaster" by the country's leading politicians.

He was accused of being "aggressive in tone and manner" in a meeting with the Indian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and dismissed as a "young man" by senior officials.
So Mandelson tried the rescue the situation. But ...
It left the impression of the Cabinet veteran being forced to clean up after the mess left by his "novice" younger colleague in India, a country which places huge emphasis on respect for elders.

The shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said yesterday: "It is becoming clear that David Miliband's India tour was a serious diplomatic disaster. To have to be rescued by Lord Mandelson adds political humiliation on top of that."

Not satisfied with having irritated both Russia and India, Mr Miliband managed to get Sri Lankans to burn his effigy. This was in May 2009.


We learn (from NotaSheep) that Mr David Miliband has sufficient sponsors for his bid to become leader of the Labour Party to go ahead. It would seem that 54 of his fellow MPs believe he is the best person to lead the Labour Party and, if they were to win a general election, would be pleased to see him become Prime Minister.

It's quite a chilling thought really, but surely by then he would be older, and wiser and may have gained a little more life experience and humility.
..........

*
See comments
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5 comments:

Witterings from Witney said...

Says not a lot about the mentality of the Labour party that they would want DM as leader - no?

Anonymous said...

Being a Jew in a non-Jewish state, as a minister/leader, he has to portray himself a non-Jew.. what is best way to do that? demonise the countries like India and Israel to please the Islamic society.. as far the Sri Lanka, he thought "When I can kick the Indian PM ass and get away with that, why cant I with a small country.." whenever I feel depressed and in need of some laughter, I always search the web with following search strings and read all the comments of British public.

Will appreciate if you could add other search strings on miliband,.


miliband bean
miliband banana
miliband boy
Silly Band
miliband Millipede
Banana man miliband

Mrs Rigby said...

@ WfW
Some politicians seem to have selectively short memories.

@ Anon.
Interesting theory

Mark Wadsworth said...

He worked for the Institute for Public Policy Research. (a government funded pro-Labour think tank). There is no such thing as the "Institute for Policy Studies" in the UK, AFAIAA.

Mrs Rigby said...

@ MW - edited correction. TY.