The Daily Telegraph story about David Miliband offering Number 11 to Alan Milburn rings true for a number of reasons: not least that Milburn has also been in to see Gordon Brown about a possible return to Government. At a time when Labour is desperately in need of combative talent in its front row, the absence of Mr Milburn is – as he would say – “plain daft”.
Like Fraser, I admire AM and his restless energy enormously. It is a shame that he has not felt comfortable simply staying in Government or, better still, defecting to the Tories.
But the Brownites will be thrilled by this story, for reasons I discuss in tomorrow’s magazine. The key to keeping Miliband in his box is to caricature him as a puppet of the neo-Blairite faction: a sort of mini-me Tony, or the Knock-off Nigel of New Labour. Gordon knows this much: Labour may be terrified of losing but it does not see the neo-Blairites as the answer.
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