David Miliband

David Miliband     (politician, businessman)
Born	David Wright Miliband 1965-07-15 London, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Corpus Christi College (Oxford), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Parents	• Ralph Miliband • Marion Kozak
Children	2
Spouse	Louise Shackelton
Member of	Ditchley/Governors, Ditchley/UK, European Council on Foreign Relations, Institute for War and Peace Reporting/Board, International Rescue Committee/Directors and Overseers, Macro Advisory Partners/Board, Munich Security Conference/Advisory Council, The American Academy in Berlin/Distinguished Visitors, Trilateral Commission
Interests	International Rescue Committee
Party	Labour
Relatives	• Ralph Miliband • Marion Kozak • Ed Miliband
UK politician  President of the International Rescue Committee In office 1 September 2013 - Present  Shadow Foreign Secretary  In office 11 May 2010 - 8 October 2010 Preceded by William Hague Succeeded by Yvette Cooper  Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs In office 28 June 2007 - 11 May 2010 Preceded by Margaret Beckett Succeeded by William Hague  Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs In office 5 May 2006 - 27 June 2007 Preceded by Margaret Beckett  UK/Minister of State for Communities and Local Government In office 11 May 2005 - 5 May 2006  UK/Minister of State for the Cabinet Office In office 16 December 2004 - 11 May 2005  Minister for Schools In office 24 October 2002 - 16 December 2004  Member of Parliament for South Shields In office 7 June 2001 - 15 April 2013 Preceded by Tony Benn, Peter Brooke, David Clark, Robin Corbett, Archie Hamilton, Edward Heath, Michael Heseltine, Tom King, Nicholas Lyell, John Major, John Morris, Ray Whitney, Shaun Woodward  Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster  In office 16 December 2004 - 11 May 2005  UK/Minister for Schools In office 24 October 2002 - 16 December 2004  Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit In office 1 May 1997 - 7 June 2001  Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs In office 11 May 2010 - 8 October 2010  Member of Parliament for South Shields In office 7 June 2001 - 15 April 2013 Preceded by Tony Benn, Peter Brooke, David Clark, Robin Corbett, Archie Hamilton, Edward Heath, Michael Heseltine, Tom King, Nicholas Lyell, John Major, John Morris, Ray Whitney, Shaun Woodward

David Wright Miliband (born 15 July 1965) is a former British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Shields from the United Kingdom general election, 2001 to the South Shields by-election, 2013 and was the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2007 to 2010. He is the elder son of the late Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband. David Miliband and his brother, the current Leader of the Labour Party Ed Miliband, were the first siblings to sit in the UK Cabinet simultaneously since Edward, Lord Stanley, and Oliver Stanley in 1938.

Born in London, Miliband studied at Oxford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he started his career at the Institute for Public Policy Research]. Aged 29 he became Tony Blair's Head of Policy whilst the Labour Party was in opposition, and he was a major contributor to Labour's manifesto for the 1997 election which brought the party to power in a landslide victory. Blair subsequently made him head of the Downing Street policy unit from 1997 to 2001, at which point Miliband was elected to Parliament for the seat of South Shields.

Miliband spent the next few years in various junior ministerial posts, including at the Department for Education and Skills, before joining the Cabinet in 2006 as Environment Secretary. His tenure in this post saw climate change consolidated as a priority for policymakers. On the succession of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister on 28 June 2007, Miliband was promoted to become Foreign Secretary. At the age of 41, he became the youngest person to hold that office since David Owen 30 years earlier. In September 2010, following Labour's defeat in the general election, David Miliband narrowly lost the Labour leadership election to his brother Ed. On 29 September 2010, he announced that to avoid "constant comparison" with his brother Ed, and because of the "perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts to find division where there is none, and splits where they don't exist, all to the detriment of the party's cause", he would not stand for the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet.

On 15 April 2013, David Miliband resigned from Parliament in order to take up the posts of President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee in New York City, which triggered a South Shields by-election.

Early life

Born in London, David Miliband is the elder son of Jewish immigrants, Belgian-born Marxist sociologist Ralph Miliband and Marion Kozak from Poland. He was given the middle name of "Wright" after the American sociologist C. Wright Mills, a friend of his father, Ralph. He has said "I am the child of Jewish immigrants and that is a very important part of my identity." Both his Polish Jewish paternal grandparents lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. His paternal grandfather, Samuel, a trained leather worker, fought for the Red Army in the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921 before moving to Belgium. His paternal grandmother, Renia (later known as Renée), also moved to Belgium, where she first met Sam, and the couple married in 1923. The German invasion of Belgium in May 1940 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. During his visit to Poland in June 2009, Miliband went to his family tomb in the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw. He said of Poland, "My mother was born here, her life was saved by those who risked theirs sheltering her from Nazi oppression", and that he is "one of the million Britons who have Polish blood".

Education

David Miliband was educated at Primrose Hill Primary School, London Borough of Camden, and then from 1978 to 1983 Haverstock Comprehensive School in North London. He obtained four GCE Advanced Levels, and won admission to the University of Oxford. He studied at Corpus Christi College (Oxford) and obtained a first class honours degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. From 1988 to 1989 he took a master's degree in Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a Kennedy Scholar.

Political biography

Miliband's first job was as a political analyst at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). From 1989 to 1994, he 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.

Policy adviser to Tony Blair

In 1994 David 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 TV series character.

Member of Parliament

In the 2001 general election David Miliband was elected to Parliament for the Labour stronghold of South Shields, succeeding David Clark, Baron Clark of Windermere. 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.

In 2003, Miliband voted to go to war in Iraq. Later, in 2010, he said that his decision was based on his belief that Iraq then had weapons of mass destruction.

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 within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. This was a newly created cabinet-level post with responsibility for housing, planning, regeneration and local government. Because the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, was the Departmental Minister officially in charge of these portfolios, Miliband was not given the title Secretary of State but he was appointed a Privy Councillor and became a full member of the Cabinet.

Environment Secretary

On 5 May 2006 following the local elections Tony Blair made a major cabinet reshuffle in which David Miliband replaced Margaret Beckett as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. 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" among consumers, farmers, manufacturers and retailers. Miliband also believes the European Union and the World Trade Organisation affect power relations between British and foreign farmers.

He was the first British cabinet member to have a blog, though claims of excessive cost to the taxpayer provoked some controversy. 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 that he was referring specifically to health benefits.

David 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.

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 Paul Staines, and mocked, after which further edits by guest users were temporarily prevented. 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. 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.

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".

Foreign Secretary

On 28 June 2007, the day after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, Miliband was appointed Foreign Secretary. He was 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 had assumed office at the age of 37 in 1935. David's younger brother, the economist Ed Miliband, was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, making them the first siblings to serve together in Cabinet since Edward, Lord Stanley and his brother Oliver Stanley in 1938.

David Miliband's first Foreign Office questions session as Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons was on 3 July 2007. 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. He was left on his own again by the Prime Minister to speak in favour of the European Union (Amendment) Bill in the House on 21 January 2008.

On 21 February 2008, Miliband admitted (despite previous government denials) that two U.S. extraordinary rendition flights had stopped on Diego Garcia, a U.K. territory, in 2002. When questioned as to whether the government had deliberately misled the public over rendition, Miliband apologised and stated that the government had "made a mistake".

On 5 February 2009, Miliband made a statement to the House of Commons concerning Guantanamo Bay detainee and former British resident Benyam Mohammed. A week later Mohamed’s American lawyer Yvonne Bradley flew to Britain to urge the Foreign Office to press harder for his release. On 23 February 2009, Benyam Mohammed returned to Britain and was granted temporary residence. However, in July 2010, Clive Stafford Smith accused former Foreign Secretary David Miliband of "fighting tooth and nail" to prevent the release of vital documents during the Binyam Mohamed case.

India trip

After his trip to India in 2008 following the Mumbai attacks, Miliband wrote in an article that "resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders". This sparked an angry response from the Indian government, whose long standing policy had been not to accept any third party involvement in the dispute of Kashmir. An Indian analyst suggested that his tone implied that India must shoulder some of the responsibility because of its policies in Kashmir. Some reports also said that Miliband's tone towards the Indian Prime Minister and the Finance Minister had been aggressive, and that he had been excused for being a "young man".

Sri Lanka ceasefire

During the latter stages of the Sri Lankan Army's 2008/09 offensive against the LTTE, Miliband travelled to Sri Lanka to press the Sri Lankan government to call a ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers, citing concerns for civilians caught in the crossfire. During the victory celebrations that took place a few weeks later, a burning effigy of Miliband was reported to have been tossed over the gate of the British High Commission in Colombo.

In December 2010 articles published in the British newspapers The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph highlighted that Miliband was spending two-thirds of his time focusing on the Sri Lankan civil war, largely due to domestic political calculations. The source of the articles was a leaked US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks. The articles quoted Tim Waite, a Foreign Office official as saying

that much of Her Majesty's government and ministerial attention to Sri Lanka is due to the "very vocal" Tamil diaspora in the UK, numbering over 300,000, who had been protesting in front of Parliament since 6 April.

According to Wikileaks, this was reported by Richard Mills a United States Embassy worker in UK. Richard Mills further wrote on his cable, saying that

"with UK elections on the horizon and many Tamils living in Labour constituencies with slim majorities, the government is paying particular attention to Sri Lanka, with Miliband recently remarking to Waite that he was spending 60 per cent of his time at the moment on Sri Lanka".

Mockery of justice

Following an article in The Guardian of 21 February 2008 headlined "Miliband blocks release of key Lockerbie files", The Sunday Herald of 24 February 2008 accused David Miliband of making the Lockerbie appeal a mockery of justice. The paper was scathing about David Miliband's having signed a Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate in an attempt to prevent disclosure of the document (relating to timers) that had been in the hands of the Crown Office since 1996 (before the Lockerbie trial) but which had not been divulged to the Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's defence (as the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission believed it should have been). It expressed the view that it is outrageous for the UK Government to seek to prevent the Scottish Appeal Court having access to the foreign document even though the SCCRC took the view that a verdict reached in ignorance of it might have amounted to a miscarriage of justice.

On 25 February 2008, Hans Köchler, UN Observer at the Lockerbie trial, reported:

The continued withholding of evidence related to the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi makes a new appeal actually impossible. Should the document in question not be made available, criminal proceedings under Scots Law will have to be terminated.

The behaviour of the British Government is in contravention to the commitment it made vis-à-vis the United Nations Organisation prior to the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1192 (1998) to enable a fair and independent trial of the two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie case under Scots Law.

The invocation of "Public Interest Immunity" (PII) – unprecedented in the history of Scottish criminal justice – is tantamount to political interference into the Appeal Court’s conduct. It is obvious that criminal proceedings cannot be fair if the Defence is denied access to a piece of evidence (document) which has been revealed to the Prosecution.

Under the highly politicised circumstances of the Lockerbie Trial, the issuing of a PII certificate by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom appears to be a rather desperate measure to influence the conduct of the court in a manner favorable to the British Government; it further strains the constitutional relations between Scotland and the United Kingdom.

The separation of powers between the Executive and Judiciary is a basic characteristic of the rule of law. In the present case, this principle is violated because of the outright interference of the British Government in a matter of the Scottish Judiciary.

The British Government’s interference makes devolution of authority in matters of Criminal Justice to Scotland entirely meaningless. What is the meaning of "devolution" if a Scottish Court is prevented from operating according to its own rules? Scots Law is not to be administered under the terms of a Protectorate. The crucial question will now be whether the Scots will be able to assert their (constitutional) independence in devolved matters.

It is to be hoped that the Scottish Judges will uphold the independence of the Judiciary and will reject the British Government’s interference. A court of law is transformed into a political body should the Judges allow this kind of interference.

The persistent refusal of the UK Government to allow the disclosure of vital evidence to the Defence points into the direction of a cover-up. In the context of the irregularities at the Lockerbie trial and appeal in the Netherlands (described in the undersigned’s reports of 2001 and 2002), this development demonstrates the need for an independent investigation under a United Nations mandate – especially since the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has declared that a "miscarriage of justice" may have occurred.

The convicted Libyan national (Megrahi) has a right to a genuine judicial review of his verdict outside the confines of international realpolitik. In June 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case back to the High Court of Justiciary for a second appeal. If appeal proceedings are now made impossible due to the British Executive’s interference, Mr Al Megrahi will be denied his right to fair trial under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In this case, he will be entitled to proceed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

On 21 July 2008, Hans Köchler wrote to David Miliband:

I regret having to contact you again in the Lockerbie case – a matter that should have been resolved by now (almost twenty years after the tragic event) on the basis of the rule of law. Allow me, first, to refer to the Libya page on the web site of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The section related to the midair explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie states, inter alia, that:

"Al-Megrahi was found guilty and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah not proven [sic!]."

While the information concerning Mr Al-Megrahi is correct, the information concerning Mr Fhimah is wrong. The accurate words in the case of the verdict reached on Mr Fhimah would be "not guilty". It is worthy to note that the sentence on the FCO web site is also semantically flawed. A person can be found "guilty" or "not guilty", but not "proven" or "not proven". Only an allegation/accusation, not a person, can be found "proven" or "not proven". The sentence on the web site can easily be corrected if the word "proven" is replaced by the word "guilty". ["On 31 January 2001 Al-Megrahi was found guilty and Fhimah not guilty" instead of "On 31 January 2001 Al-Megrahi was found guilty and Fhimah not proven".]

I trust that, for the sake of truth, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office will correct this mistake. The accurate information about the verdict in Mr Fhimah’s case is to be found in the official transcript of the High Court of Justiciary at Kamp van Zeist (record of Day 86, January 31, 2001, pages 10235 to 10236).

Comments over terrorism

In August 2009, David Miliband was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Great Lives programme, choosing South African Communist Party leader and anti-apartheid activist Joe Slovo. Miliband stated during the programme, in a response to a question about terrorism, that "yes, there are circumstances in which it is justifiable and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective, but it is never effective on its own". These comments were criticised by Menzies Campbell and William Hague.

European Foreign Minister

The Treaty of Lisbon created the post of High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy for the European Union, a post commonly known as the European Foreign Minister. In autumn 2009, as the treaty came close to coming into force, Miliband was named as being under consideration for the post as EU officials regarded him as "ideal material". Miliband publicly insisted that he was not available to fill the post, as he was committed to remaining in the British cabinet. Baroness Ashton, a fellow British Labour politician and then European Commissioner for Trade, was ultimately appointed to the post instead.

Relations with Israel

On 23 March 2010, the UK expelled an Israeli diplomat owing to claims that an embassy official from that country forged passports, relating to the Assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, and Miliband gave a public warning against travel to Israel because of identity theft concerns.

Background

On 29 July 2008, David Miliband wrote an article in The Guardian that outlined his vision of a future of the Labour Party but made no mention of Gordon Brown. The piece was widely interpreted as a leadership challenge to the then Prime Minister, not least because the timing of its publication – just after Brown's departure on holiday at the start of the parliamentary summer recess, and while there was intense speculation about his continuing leadership following Labour's defeat in the Glasgow East by-election the previous week – seemed designed to produce a large political impact. In the following days two Labour MPs called on Brown to sack Miliband for his perceived disloyalty. Miliband, while denying 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 believed a David Miliband-led Labour Party would tackle the Conservatives more effectively, reaching out to voters in marginal seats as well as securing Labour's core support.

Campaign

The Labour Party lost the UK general election held on 6 May 2010, and Gordon Brown soon announced that he was standing down as leader of the party.

On 12 May 2010, flanked by 15 supportive members of the parliamentary party, David Miliband announced from outside the House of Commons that he would stand in the resulting Labour leadership election. On 10 June 2010, Barry Sheerman, Huddersfield MP, nominated Miliband for the Labour Party leadership post with Mr Sheerman's daughter, Madlin Sadler, as Miliband's Campaign Co-ordinator. Madlin Sadler had served under Miliband previously as Special Advisor.

The other contenders for the leadership were Ed Balls, Andy Burnham, Diane Abbott and David’s brother Ed Miliband, with David Miliband gaining the most nominations. The result of the contest was announced on 25 September 2010, the day before the start of the 2010 Labour Party Conference in Manchester. While David Miliband led the share of the electoral college votes in the first three rounds, he lost in the final round (50.65% to 49.35%) to his brother Ed. He announced on 29 September 2010 that he would be quitting frontline politics and would not be a part of his brother Ed's shadow cabinet.

Retirement from politics

Miliband resigned from the shadow cabinet in October 2010, but continued to serve as the MP for South Shields. He also taught A-Level Government and Politics on a voluntary basis at Haverstock School. In 2011, he became Senior Global Advisor for Oxford Analytica.

The International Rescue Committee (The IRC)

Full article: International Rescue Committee

On 26 March 2013 the Daily Mirror reported that Miliband would be announcing the following day that he intended to resign as an MP and leave politics altogether. He announced he was taking up a charity post as head of the International Rescue Committee in New York where his remuneration is reported to be £300,000 ($450,000).

Miliband became the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee on 1 September 2013. At the IRC, Miliband will be overseeing humanitarian aid and development programs in 40 countries, a global staff of 12,000 and 1,300 volunteers, and an annual budget of $450 million. Near the top of the IRC, Miliband again installed his former Special Political Advisor from London, Madlin Sadler. She became the aid agency's Chief of Staff.

Syria's Civil War

The IRC has been responding to Syria's refugee crisis. On The ABC News Program of 13 October 2013, "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, David Miliband commented that he worried about the immediate effects of the current diplomatic solution in Syria of sending in Chemical Weapons Inspectors and destroying the chemical stockpiles would have on the ongoing crisis. He said: "We’re concerned that people think that somehow, because the chemical weapons seem to be addressed, that the Syrian conflict, the regional conflict, is done and dusted.” On 10 October 2013, David Miliband said there were huge risks in not intervening militarily. "We've got people on the ground, not just in Syria but in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq,” he told a foreign policy discussion in Manhattan. "I’ve got people who are in danger." He quoted Frederick The Great, saying: "Diplomacy without weapons is like music without instruments." His policy opinions were at odds with his younger brother, Ed Miliband, the Labour Party's Leader in the UK who insisted that the Labour Party will not back military intervention.

On February 28, 2014, in a TV interview with KPBS Evening Edition in San Diego, David Miliband reiterated that the US and other nations needed to intervene "both politically as well as financially" in Syria where one in two Syrians was displaced because the government of Bashar al-Assad was "dropping barrel bombs on its own citizens".

On KPBS TV, Miliband revealed that the IRC was running cross border aid to Syrians beyond the scope of the United Nations. Miliband said such "cross border aid" has reached about a half million Syrians with medical aid in cities that were "besieged and cut off from the UN help". Another half million Syrians, said Miliband, had received non-medical aid. Mr Miliband stated that in the UN's absence, "It comes to International NGO's, non governmental organisations, to get across the border crossings and weave their way between the conflict lines to reach people." He stated the need for such extraordinary efforts was great and the need for such ingenuity was even greater.

Typhoon Haiyan

On 10 November 2013, IRC CEO David Miliband ordered the war relief agency to mount an emergency response to a natural disaster—Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Miliband announced a huge donation drive for funds dedicated exclusively to the storm: "In the face of a rising death toll and widespread humanitarian catastrophe the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has dispatched an emergency team to Manila and launched a $10,000,000 appeal in order to implement the most appropriate response. We have today taken the decision to deploy emergency relief coordinators to the Philippines, with a view to deciding with the host government which of IRC's areas of expertise — from water and sanitation to education — are most needed. The IRC’s emergency unit will start work immediately."

David Miliband is Co-chair of the Global Ocean Commission which was founded in February 2013.

Other income

According to a March 2013 article in the Huffington Post UK, Miliband has earned almost £1m since the 2010 election. The article listed sources of income from speaking (where he has earned up to £20,000 per event), advisory and teaching roles, journalism, gifts, hospitality, and overseas visits.

Expense claims

The Daily Telegraph's investigation of expenses claims by Members of Parliament reported that David Miliband had claimed for gardening expenses and approximately £30,000 in repairs, decorations, and furnishings for his constituency home in South Shields. A spokesperson said: "At every stage, David Miliband followed the procedures and rules as laid out by the parliamentary authorities".

Personal life

Miliband is married to Louise Shackelton, a professional violinist formerly with the London Symphony Orchestra. Shackelton and Miliband have adopted two newborn sons from the United States, the first in December 2004 and the second in October 2007,<refhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2120096/David-Miliband-speaks-of-adopting-his-sons.html</ref> and currently live in New York. In an interview with CNN in 2009, Miliband stated that he grew up in a secular setting, and describes himself as an atheist with a "huge respect" for people of faith.

Business interests

On 21 December 2010, The Office of David Miliband Limited was formed with Miliband and his wife Louise as directors.

According to the Financial Times, "much of Mr Miliband’s time has been spent on his lucrative directorships and speaking roles, which he would be expected to give up if he returned to frontline politics…as of January 2013, David Miliband has made just short of £1m on top of his MP’s salary since he failed to win the Labour leadership in the summer of 2010."

David Miliband is one of six members of the Global Advisory Board of Macro Advisory Partners which advises multinational corporations, sovereign wealth funds, investors, and governments.

In January 2012, David Miliband joined the Board of Directors of Mauritius based private equity group, Indus Basin Holdings. IBH operates Rice Partners in the Punjab region of Pakistan. It specialises in managing the end-to-end supply chain for major global users of rice.

According to the Financial Times, "Mr Miliband’s jobs include advisory roles with VantagePoint Capital Partners, a Californian group; Oxford Analytica, a UK advisory company; and Indus Basin Holdings, a Pakistani agrochemical group. He is also a member of the advisory board to the Sir Bani Yas academic forum, which is hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates. Despite supporting Arsenal, Mr Miliband is vice-chairman and a non-executive director of Sunderland Football Club. As a speaker he commands a fee of up to £20,000."

Miliband is also on the Advisory Board of the VantagePoint Capital Partners.

Bibliography

• Gutch, Richard; Miliband, David; Percival, Richard (1989). Publish and still not be damned: a guide for voluntary groups on the provisions of the 1986 and 1988 Local Government Acts regarding political publicity and the promotion of homosexuality. National Council for Voluntary Organisations. ISBN 978-0-7199-1251-1.
• Tindale, Stephen; Miliband, David (1991). Beyond economics : European government after Maastricht. Discussion paper, no. 12. Fabian Society. ISBN 978-0-7163-3012-7.
• Miliband, David (1992). A more perfect union? Britain and the new Europe. IPPR. ISBN 978-1-872452-53-1.
• Miliband, David (1994). Reinventing the Left. Polity Press. ISBN 978-0-7456-1390-1.
• Miliband, David (2006). Empowerment and the deal for devolution. ODPM. ISBN 978-1-85112-842-6.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
David Malcolm Nott	“This disease is so virulent, it's so dangerous and so pathogenic, it causes such high mortality... If you look at David Miliband and you look at his International Rescue Committee. He did some modelling based on the Imperial College London at WHO and in 34 fragile countries he has shown that in the next few weeks if we don't do anything, 500 million or one billion people will become infected and of that 3 million will possibly die... This is a global problem, and we're really all in our little countries dealing with the problems on our own... not our country but other countries are making huge mistakes... What we really really need is a global pandemic executive perhaps which can go to every country in this world and say look, we have learned from this pandemic. We know how to deal with it. We know what the problems are. [Led by who?] Led by David Miliband, without a shadow of a doubt. We've got somebody who is a respectful statesman, politician, had an enormous track record, and he needs to be in charge of it.”	David Malcolm Nott	May 2020

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Berlin Climate and Security Conference/2024				Conference where Greens can now put on military olive-green
Munich Security Conference/2009	2009	2009	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 45th Munich Security Conference
Munich Security Conference/2014	31 January 2014	2 February 2014	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 50th Munich Security Conference
Munich Security Conference/2017	17 February 2017	19 February 2017	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 53rd Munich Security Conference
Munich Security Conference/2018	12 February 2018	14 February 2018	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 54th Munich Security Conference
Munich Security Conference/2019	15 February 2019	17 February 2019	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 55th Munich Security Conference, which included "A Spreading Plague" aimed at "identifying gaps and making recommendations to improve the global system for responding to deliberate, high consequence biological events."
Munich Security Conference/2020	14 February 2020	16 February 2020	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 56th Munich Security Conference, in 2020, "welcomed an unprecedented number of high-ranking international decision-makers."
Munich Security Conference/2022	18 February 2022	20 February 2022	Germany Munich Bavaria	Slightly less than 1/3 of the 664 of the participants have pages here
Munich Security Conference/2023	17 February 2023	19 February 2023	Germany Munich Bavaria	Annual conference of mid-level functionaries from the military-industrial complex - politicians, propagandists and lobbyists. The real decisions are made by deep politicians behind the scenes, elsewhere.
Munich Security Conference/2024	16 February 2024	18 February 2024	Germany Munich Bavaria	Annual conference of mid-level functionaries from the military-industrial complex - politicians, propagandists and lobbyists - in their own bubble, far from the concerns of their subjects
WEF/Annual Meeting/2007	24 January 2007	28 January 2007	Switzerland	Only the 449 public figures listed of ~2200 participants
WEF/Annual Meeting/2008	23 January 2008	27 January 2008	World Economic Forum Switzerland	At the 2008 summit, Klaus Schwab called for a coordinated approach, where different 'stakeholders' collaborate across geographical, industrial, political and cultural boundaries."
WEF/Annual Meeting/2009	23 January 2009	27 January 2009	World Economic Forum Switzerland	Chairman Klaus Schwab outlined five objectives driving the Forum’s efforts to shape the global agenda, including letting the banks that caused the 2008 economic crisis keep writing the rules, the climate change agenda, over-national government structures, taking control over businesses with the stakeholder agenda, and a "new charter for the global economic order".
WEF/Annual Meeting/2019	22 January 2019	25 January 2019	World Economic Forum Switzerland	"The reality is that we are in a Cold War [against China] that threatens to turn into a hot one."
WEF/Annual Meeting/2020	21 January 2020	24 January 2020	World Economic Forum Switzerland	This mega-summit of the world's ruling class and their political and media appendages happens every year, but 2020 was special, as the continuous corporate media coverage of COVID-19 started more or less from one day to the next on 20/21 January 2020, coinciding with the start of the meeting.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2023	16 January 2023	20 January 2023	World Economic Forum Switzerland	The theme of the meeting was "Cooperation in a Fragmented World"

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Peak Kinnock	Article	19 September 2016	Craig Murray	"11,000 people saving £2 a month might not save a dying little baby, but would exactly pay the £264,000 per year salary of Neil Kinnock’s daughter-in-law Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Chief Executive of Save the Children and wife of MP Stephen Kinnock. Misery for some is a goldmine for others."

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