David Miliband

David Miliband     ( politician,  businessman)
Born	David Wright Miliband 1965-07-15  London,  England,  United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	Jewish
Alma mater	•  Corpus Christi College (Oxford) •  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Parents	•  Ralph Miliband •  Marion Kozak
Children	2
Siblings	Ed Miliband
Spouse	Louise Shackelton
Member of	Ditchley/Governors, Ditchley/UK, European Council on Foreign Relations, Institute for War and Peace Reporting/Board, International Rescue Committee, Macro Advisory Partners/Board, Munich Security Conference/Advisory Council, The American Academy in Berlin/Distinguished Visitors, The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, Trilateral Commission
Interests	International Rescue Committee
Party	Labour
UK politician who was Foreign Secretary 2007-2010  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 Succeeded by Hilary Benn  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 (MP), Robin Corbett, Archie Hamilton, 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 (MP), Robin Corbett, Archie Hamilton, Michael Heseltine, Tom King, Nicholas Lyell, John Major, John Morris, Ray Whitney, Shaun Woodward

David Wright Miliband is a former British Labour Party politician who was Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010. He is the elder son of the late Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband. David Miliband and his brother, Ed Miliband, sat in the UK Cabinet simultaneously. In 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).

Education

David Miliband went to Corpus Christi College (Oxford) and obtained a 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.

Foreign Secretary

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).

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".

Business interests

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

 

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	8 October 2024	8 October 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, around half of the attendants have pages.
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." Slightly over 1/4 of them have pages.
Munich Security Conference/2022	18 February 2022	20 February 2022	Germany Munich Bavaria	Slightly over 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, about 30% of whom have a page. The policies are determined 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
Munich Security Conference/2025	14 February 2025	16 February 2025	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 WEF	Only the 450 public figures listed of ~2200 participants
WEF/Annual Meeting/2008	23 January 2008	27 January 2008	Switzerland WEF	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	Switzerland WEF	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/2010	27 January 2010	31 January 2010	Switzerland WEF	The organizing theme for the 40th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in 2010 was "Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign and Rebuild."
WEF/Annual Meeting/2019	22 January 2019	25 January 2019	Switzerland WEF	"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	Switzerland WEF	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	Switzerland WEF	The theme of the meeting was "Cooperation in a Fragmented World"
WEF/Annual Meeting/2025	20 January 2025	24 January 2025	Switzerland WEF	Brought more than 2,500 delegates to Davos from government, business and civil society of whom 809 are listed here.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2026	19 January 2026	23 January 2026	Switzerland WEF	Held in Davos, Switzerland January 2026.

 

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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