I have been extremely critical of David Miliband in the past, when he was a front-line politician in the last Brown Government, and widely regarded as the most likely next Labour leader. There was no question of his ability, either as a Minister or as a politician, but I found him far too smooth. He seemed to me the most successful of all the aspiring imitators of Tony Blair - Nick Clegg & David Cameron being among the others - with everything sinister that implies; for instance very powerful and infectious self-belief, the ability to persuade colleagues & voters to back highly dubious proposals. I found his ambition disturbing because it was so naked. Again like Tony Blair, he seemed to have a lust for power, a lust that if fulfilled would provide external confirmation of what he knew inside already all along, that he was right.
Now though I find my opinion of David Miliband has modified, and for the following reason: what he has not done since losing the Labour leadership election. Now, a majority of voters in the Labour leadership contest did what members of Parties often do when they have just suffered a bruising defeat and been turfed out of office after a long spell in it. They elect a leader who suits them, who they feel comfortable with (in this case Ed M), not the one who would most effectively make their case to the wider electorate (here, David M). This is because the latter kind of leader is necessarily suspect to them; because that leader by definition has a wider view of things than the majority of his party members; in the case of the Labour Party, he or she would be 'too right-wing'. Remember how the Tories elected that succession of no-hopers after John Major, their very own Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko sequence. I've had to look up what exact order they came in to make sure, but in a sense it doesn't really matter: William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith for heaven's sake !, Michael Howard. This is the same process at work. These leaders were sufficiently right-wing to suit the taste of the Party and activists, but too right-wing for the electorate at large.
Now Ed Miliband, after a stumbling start, is turning out to be a better leader of Labour than I had anticipated. I think he still has great difficulty coming over naturally in tv interviews. But it is not Ed I am concerned with here, it is David.
Think what has not happened since the outcome of the leadership election. There have been no stories of splits or tension or disagreement over policy between David and Ed. There has been no sniping at Ed, no critical running commentary, no secret hostile briefing to journalists from himself or from 'friends'. David retired from the front-line with the professed aim of avoiding stories of splits, and as it turns out has really done so. He has kept his own counsel, and been prepared to let Ed make his own way unhindered. Now - think of the amount of mischief David could have caused if he had wanted to, the civil war he could at least have tried to ignite, based on pique and wounded vanity; motives common in political disputes. That he has not done so is to me testament to his restraint. I infer that he has not done so from the absence of stories of conflict he could have generated had he wished, in a media only too eager to receive and amplify them.
Which all leads me to a position I never thought I would hold. What I would like to see is David Miliband returning to front-line politics. Why ? Because he knows what he's on about when it comes to foreign affairs. At this time of great turmoil abroad, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, where our interests and sympathies are involved and we face all sorts of choices and temptations over if and how to intervene (or put negatively to meddle), we need his voice, his expertise, his advice.
I think the recent check in his career has done David M good. It is in times of adversity and enforced silence that true character is both developed and shown. Think of Teddy Roosevelt in the Dakota Territory after his wife and mother died, or Churchill in his wilderness years. Lofty comparisons perhaps, but something akin to what David is undergoing now; his forty days and nights in the Desert.
One thing David may wish to contemplate during this time is his alleged complicity in Extraordinary Rendition while he was Foreign Secretary, one thing that remains a permanent stain on his reputation (http://bigthink.com/ideas/40079 via Graham Linehan, @Glinner on Twitter). Nothing could furnish stronger material for reflections on the responsibilities and morality of power. If it's true, it is a mistake he can learn from, learn not to repeat, even in another form. Not in any way to excuse him if he was complicit in Rendition, but the exercise of Foreign Policy always involves those doing it in dubious transactions. To take an obvious example, everyone is obliged to deal with the Chinese Government, because the potential market is so huge, and their influence on world affairs ever on the rise. This despite their human rights record, about which they are completely unapologetic and have no intention of changing. Indeed, their continued existence as a Government relies partly precisely on that abuse of human rights. Robin Cook's 'Ethical Foreign Policy' was a dream, or more accurately an only partly realisable aspiration. The thing in Foreign Policy is not whether you are engaged in actions that are wrong, but how do you limit the extent of that engagement. This is not a cynical excuse for unfettered participation in any and all abuses. It is a recognition of reality and a call for restraint. Even having the most severely limited foreign policy ('Splendid Isolation') does not free you from contamination, for several reasons. The first is that you end up commiting sins of omission, as John Major and Douglas Hurd did over former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the early '90s. President Clinton has acknowledged his sorrow and shame over failing to act in the latter. The second is that States or foreign terrorists attack you anyway, regardless of your desire to keep well out of it. Think of the Axis Powers in the last '30s.
Aside from mulling over all that, going forward David M retains his skill as a communicator, but has a chance to discover his own more authentic voice, and his own true political identity to communicate. Again, an extremely extravagant comparison, but think of the political journey of Bobby Kennedy, another one of a set of brothers prominent in public life, over his lifetime. Because of where RFK ended up, we can forgive his origins as a hawkish Cold War warrior, among other things attacking Eisenhower during the 1960 presidential election for allowing the growth of the supposed 'missile gap' with the Soviet Union.
In sum what I am saying is, come back David, we need you !
Though whether our political-media system is mature enough to permit his re-emergence in the near future is another matter.
However any of the foregoing may be, one thing I can say with certainty is that we definitely have not heard the last of David Miliband.
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