David Miliband: A leader in the making?

By David Higgerson on Jul 6, 09 08:33 PM

Not surprisingly, the Westminster village is buzzing with how to interpret David Miliband's latest TV outing.

The MP for South Shields - the only constituency to never vote anything other than a Labour MP in - made lots of noise on the Andrew Marr show about how there needs to be sweeping reform of the Labour Party.

There was a certain irony to hearing one of the biggest beneficiaries of New Labour talk about the need to listen to the unions more, but I must have missed the bit where Miliband stated his claim that he wanted to taken on Gordon Brown and take over as leader (note: saying you would like to lead Labour one day is not the same as starting a leadership challenge.)

But for my money he actually displayed the quality you potentially need to be a leader when he was asked by Marr about the highly amusing story involved the new head of MI6 being pictured on Facebook in a pair of Speedos.

His wife, evidently, had recently discovered Facebook - lets just hope he's more up to speed on technological developments.

But that is besides the point. As often happens on a Sunday, the Mail on Sunday leads on a story and everyone else follows. Often, that's a good thing. Yesterday, it was a just a bit over the top.

Miliband said: "Are you leading the news with that?
"The fact that there's a picture that the head of the MI6 goes swimming - wow, that really is exciting.

"It is not a state secret that he wears Speedo swimming trunks, for goodness sake let's grow up.

"He is an outstanding professional who will do a really good job in an outstanding organisation."

The strength of his response and the instant dismissal of the story as rubbish was a sure sign that in there somewhere is a real leader.

Miliband, like many politicians, is probably briefed to death before TV shows like this. They try to second-guess what the best answer should be to a question, trying to beat the interviewer every step of the way.

But when quizzed about the MI6 story, he cut to the chase and made his point. That's the sort of leadership we need in this country. Prepared to challenge the media agenda and tell it straight.

Just think, if only he'd been so forthright 18 months ago, things could be so very different for Labour.