I’m right behind brother, David Miliband declares
DAVID Miliband has said he is completely committed to doing everything he can to support his brother Ed as leader of the Labour Party.
The former Foreign Secretary stressed his ambition was to help bring Labour back to power, adding he had to have the humility to recognise a “daily soap opera” would not benefit the party.
Mr Miliband said he did not regret running for the leadership after losing out to his younger brother in the party’s election contest in 2010.
Asked on BBC1’S The Andrew Marr Show when he was coming back to front-line politics, he said: “My ambition is to contribute to the return of the Labour Government and I think that I have to have the humility to recognise that while a daily soap opera might be fun for the media, it wouldn’t be good for the Labour Party.
“I don’t regret running for the leadership, but I honour the fact that my brother won and I am completely committed to doing everything I can to support him in that leadership and I think I can best support him by working at the grass roots.
“The shadow cabinet has its place but it’s a bigger team than that.”
Mr Miliband said he was spending time working for the grassroots of the Labour Party and wanted to make sure it became a “sustainable organisation at the grassroots”.
He joked that some people might think that it was ironic that he had set up an a c a d e my to p r o mote community leadership .
The academy is intended to help people makechanges in their own communities, and he argued that Britain had “u n d e r p o we r e d communities”.
He said the issue of youth unemployment was particularly important, adding: “There’s been a lot of talk about the cack-handedness of the granny tax in the last few days.
“But the dangerous complacency about youth unemployment is really frightening.”
Asked if he would carry on as a Labour MP after the next election, he said: “Yes, I’m representing myconstituents in South Shields.”