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Continuing a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Angela Merkel
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In the first of a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Nicholas Sarkozy
Prior to his talk at the National Science and Learning Centre, The Yorker caught up with former Foreign Secretary David Miliband to discuss the past, present and future.
Mr. Miliband, who narrowly lost out to his brother Ed in the Labour leadership election last year, was visiting the university as the eighth stop on his national university tour. He was promoting the Labour Student campaign for universities to pay their staff a “living wage”, a topic the University of York Labour Club wrote about recently in The Yorker.
The discussion with Miliband, which included various media outlets in York, explored a wide variety of topics from the situation in Pakistan to student debt to his relationship with his brother. On fees, he told The Yorker that he did not regret being part of a government who set up the Browne Report, which recommended that the cap on fees be removed. He argued that Lord Browne was “behind the eight-ball” owing to this government’s decision to remove subsidies for many arts courses. “No university can thrive with zero subsidy”, Miliband told The Yorker, whilst noting the caveat that “students know money doesn’t grow on trees”.
He was also supportive of his brother’s leadership of the Labour Party, telling The Yorker that he felt that Ed was “standing up to Cameron in his own way”, although not necessarily the way he would have done it. He described his hope that this is an “open period” in British politics where his brother will have the opportunity to develop his ideas and organisation within the party.
felt standing down from the shadow cabinet after losing the leadership election was the right thing to do and he is focused on doing what is best for the party, part of the reason why he is leading the party’s commission on youth unemployment.
Yet it was on foreign policy where he seemed most confident and at ease, a policy area for which he was Secretary of State between 2007 and 2010. He talked of his experience in both America and Afghanistan, and how he hoped a political settlement in Afghanistan could be reached. He also touched on recent troubles in Pakistan, reiterating his belief that Pakistan needs firm friends from the Western community.
It became clear that Miliband cared passionately about his work in government, and looked back very fondly at his time in Whitehall. It was almost sombre that a man of his undoubted charisma and ability, who only 18 months ago was travelling the globe representing the government, was sat in front of a group of student journalists who were firing at him a range of questions on very disparate topics. The man that should have been Prime Minister has been relegated to a small room in a university research facility.
As a parting question, The Yorker asked Miliband whether he hoped to ever be a government minister again. Whilst he used some self-deprecating humour, and expressing his hope that he will be young enough for that to be a possibility, he could not hide at least a glimpse of disappointment at missed opportunities. He finished by adding “you don’t know what the future holds”, a lesson one suspects Mr. Miliband has had to learn the hard way.
You didn't ask him whether he thought South Shields needs its own Cash & Carry? Call yourselves journalists...
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