Thursday, October 02, 2008

Dale in GQ: A Profile of the Milibands


I make my debut as a contributor to GQ Magazine in the new issue (November). I have written an extended profile of David and Ed Miliband. Having never written a piece like this before, I don't mind admitting I found it quite daunting. The main problem was the timing. Because of the print deadlines I had to file it in mid August, so in theory it could have been very out of date by now. Luckily, events have been kind to me and if anything it is more accurate today than it was at the time.

The article looks at both the Miliband brothers and seeks to assess which of them is the more talented, and likely to get to the top. I don't mind admitting that I found them both hugely engaging characters and you might be surprised at how positively I have written about them both. I suspect they feared a hatchet job. Anyway, here are a few snippets...

It’s every politician’s dream. Imagine it. You appear on BBC’s Question Time, get mercilessly harangued by a beautiful young woman who is so impressed by your erudite answer that she sends a note to your office the next day asking you out on a date. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in real political life … unless you happen to be called Ed Miliband. While brother David hogs the headlines and is touted as a Prime Minister in waiting, Ed has hunkered down, got on with his job, made many friends in all sections of the Labour Party and just as importantly avoided making too many enemies.

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Miliband and his violinist wife Louise Shackleton had already adopted one child, Isaac, in 2004. They chose to go to America to do so in order to avoid the intrusion of the British tabloid press and because adopting new born babies in this country is notoriously difficult. Nevertheless, the tabloids made every effort to seek out the baby’s birth mother, something which rankles with Miliband even now. He gives the distinct impression to friends that it wouldn’t take much to give up politics if the intrusion into his family life became too wearing. All fathers are devoted to their children, but with David Miliband this devotion borders on an obsession – something not uncommon in the fathers of adopted children. There’s that subconscious need to try just that little bit harder than normal fathers. He knows the toll his career may take on his kids, and older son Isaac has already started to notice his father’s long absences brought on by the demands of his job. “Daddy stay, Daddy stay!” he implored his father recently, as David Miliband was about to leave his South Shields home to travel down to London on a Monday morning. “Give Daddy a kiss goodbye,” said the doting Dad. “No. Daddy stay, Daddy stay,” pleaded Isaac. It was all David Miliband could do to tear himself away and walk out the door.

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The ‘geek’label is a difficult one to shake off, especially for the older Miliband. One Labour MP told me: “David has got the worst of all worlds. He’s too geeky for the Home Counties Labour people but also too geeky for the Labour heartlands”. His haircut and dress sense add weight to a slight sense of otherworldliness. He’s not quite on Planet Redwood but he needs to ditch the striped ties and add a bit of colour to what some perceive – unfairly - as a slightly monochrome personality. When David Miliband first joined the Cabinet Office under John Prescott’s tutelage, Prescott introduced him to the Department’s staff with the words: “The Mekon has landed”.

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While their father was an idealist and a benign ideologue, the sons decided that they would rather put theory into practice. There was only one vehicle for that - the Labour Party. Labour historian Brian Brivati thinks it goes further, and that the notion that we all need to find a way of rejecting our parents or at least superceding them, is at least subconsciously at play here. “They were rejecting the route of transformatory Trotskyite politics and accepted the parliamentary road and gradualism” he says. “In a way that was a rebellion in their own family, a rebellion against the parental millieu.”

Rebellion or not, former Labour leader Michael Foot, now 95 years old, says: “Ralph was incredibly proud of who they were and what they have done, but would like them to have been a little more left wing.” When you ask the Milibands what their father, who died in 1994, would have of their Cabinet careers, both look wistful, as if their main regret in life is that their father died before he could share in their success.

One Labour MP thinks their background gave them the intellectual rigour to succeed. “Marxism is a bit like Christianity. It gives you the intellectual discipline which sets you up for any kind of politics. What it doesn’t give you is an emotional link to the Labour Party,” he says, hinting that the Milibands, like Tony Blair before them, have a slightly detached and unemotional view of their own party. To them it’s a vehicle, rather than a way of life.

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To get on in politics you need the hide of a rhino and the social skills of a butterfly. The jury seems to be out as to whether either Miliband cuts the ice when it comes to gladhanding the various constituent parts of the Labour Party who get to vote in a leadership election. A friend of both the brothers has bad news for Ed, who he says is the “less socially accomplished of the two.” He adds: “If there’s a room to work, Ed will get trapped in a conversation he’s interested in, wheareas David will work the room relentlessly.” A Blairite Labour Minister concurs. “Ed carries on the Brownite tradition of not deigning to speak to anyone he doesn’t regard as a potential equal. David makes more of an effort. I can’t imagine having a pint with Ed.” In a way, this illustrates the continuing divide between the Blairites and the Brownites. While the Blairite minister reckons Ed is a little aloof, there are plenty of witnesses to him leading the late night singing around the piano at party conferences and enjoying letting his hair down.

Ed Miliband has also gained the respect of trade union leaders, whose members still have a third of the votes in a leadership election. At a recent Labour Party Policy Forum he negotiated with the union general secretaries. One Labour Minister who was present said: “He was much better, by that I mean steely and tough, than everyone expected. They were furious with him but he got their respect.”

The Miliband brothers are also living examples of the fact that the age of tribal politics is closing. The fact that party politics is now conducted entirely on the central ground plays into their hands. They’re not especially interested in the old style arguments of left versus right. If the Tories agree with them they regard it as a plus. They have made it their business to cultivate friends in the Tory Party – people like Ed Vaizey, who was just ahead of Ed Miliband at Oxford and has a high regard for him. “He has one of those faces which make you instantly like him,” says Vaizey. “He’ll happily have a gossip with you, but he knows there’s a line which you don’t cross.”

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Opinion is sharply divided both in the Labour Party and the Westminster Village about which Miliband is more likely to become leader of the Labour Party. There’s little doubt that in the current climate David is the better placed – he’s been tested and emerged with his reputation enhanced. He’s given the matter of leadership a good deal of thought and knows what needs to be done.

Ed, on the other hand, has only recently emerged from his older brother’s shadow, and realized that he too has his chance for greatness. The question is: does he want it as much as his older brother?

Anyway, if you'd like to read the whole piece, I am afraid you'll have to fork out £3.80!

25 comments:

Newmania said...

I detest them both and despise GQ so I am afraid this is not not my vessel of darjeeling.
Well done to you nonetheless

Anonymous said...

@Opinion is sharply divided both in the Labour Party and the Westminster Village about which Miliband is more likely to become leader of the Labour Party@.

Precisely, no tedious mucking about with an electorate then. We will be informed of our opinion before we are asked for it.

Anonymous said...

How can you describe the Milibands' father as "benign"? He was a f***ing Marxist.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

You really were too kind. I'd have kicked the pair of them to death.

Anonymous said...

My favourite Miliband is "The Steve"

Anonymous said...

right on sockpuppet

Anonymous said...

Do you honestly believe that this flippant boy who can't grow a moustache is worthy of being our Foreign Secretary let alone PM?

Anonymous said...

“Give Daddy a kiss goodbye,” said the doting Dad. “No. Daddy stay, Daddy stay,” pleaded Isaac. It was all David Miliband could do to tear himself away and walk out the door.

Garçon, le sick bag!

Anonymous said...

I will peruse this later, but I am surprised at all the hype for David, when his brother Ed is clearly far more 'normal' and has Tony Blair ability to speak to people in English..

I wish he would realise this and have a crack at the top job - he would be so much better than Gordon.

Okay, tougher to beat at a General Election, but at this rate we will have a country which Cameron will not want to run !

I used to buy GQ years ago when it was a decent magazine, gave away freebie books, free aftershave and had features about literature, arts and music. Then it went down hill as a bit of tit-and-arse mag - perhaps this presages a slightly more highbrow approach again ??

p.s. you are becoming almost as much of a media desperado as Toby 'Simon' Young - how long before the Hollywood Film Studios take out an option on 'Iain Dale - The Movie' ?? Oohh. mamma mia !

................................. said...

David's better looking though.

Anonymous said...

Well at least Ed doesn't do "gurning" or "Mr Bean" impressions or for that matter look a complete "dope" by being photographed walking into Conference holding a banana

Anonymous said...

Every time I see these two, I think of that famous heckle at the Glasgow Empire when Mike and then Bernie Winters came on: "F*** me. There's two of them."

Sorry about the swearing but these two have that effect on me.

Chris Paul said...

Ed Miliband is clearly the one with both talent and emotional IQ. He ought really to be the one to prosper. If DM is ever elected leader he will have my full support of copurse but he is more of a mad professor than a future PM in my opinion, just now anyway.

Chris Paul said...

PS is that Isaac quote an example of the Mili using his family as stunt props?

Anonymous said...

I hate Labour and all its pomps and all its works, but Ed Miliband seems a good thing. He radiates intelligence and integrity.

Alan Douglas said...

I know you have been to Birmingham, but why are you doing a profile of the Midlands ? And that map you show is very inaccurate !

Alan Douglas

Anonymous said...

Have you heard Ed Milliband speak? Like an alien from Star Trek. He's got no chance with the public.

Anonymous said...

Two experiences - last year when they began touting the SKY politician pin up cards Miliband D was getting all the female attention. I remeber saying to Ed, "It's a shame you appear such a nerd as I think you're actually smarter, funnier and more understandable when you talk about politics!" He laughed coyly but genuinely feels he gets the worst press.
Miliabnd D at this Conference was 'so busy' he didn't appear at copious fringe mtgs he was down to attend. When I caught up with him I castigated him for the same and he blithlely dismissed me saying "Oh surely not that can't be true - shall we have a picture?" as my friend had a camera to hand. He smiled his huge -urber Tony B smile - gave me a hug and and then marched away very busy like.....
I think Ed's great - a promising talent for us in the future.

Anonymous said...

I don't want Trots in positions of power in this country. Any more discussion of this gruesome twosome is an unfortunate waste of bandwidth.

*Grabs the sick bag from 'kev g'@10:10 and uses it repeatedly*

Anonymous said...

My (Tory) MP says that at Westminster Brother D is cold and arrogant, whilst Brother E is pleasant and friendly.

Anonymous said...

I hate both of them, as they have been in the NL Politburo, and have been around throughout the most damaging years of the 20/21st century. They can take their marxist ideology and stick it where the sun dont shine.

I wish both of them only evil.

Anonymous said...

Phew! That WASN'T the whole piece?

Anonymous said...

Oh and kevG, I think you'll find that's le sac de sick...

Lola said...

You say that they have no use for the old tribal politics and that they exist in the centre ground. So what does that mean? They seem to be there without conviction and as professional career men. This doesn't make me confident. What 'beliefs' do they have? Where are their passions for a philosophy or is it just that they feel they can carve out a career by operating left of centre? That is it's not about changing the world or just running things properly. It's about their own self interest in making a career that pays well and puts them in positions of pwer.

I get no sense of commitment to a political credo. All I get is a sense of two clever blokes seeing a space in which they can develop their own personal franchises. This attitude, if true, will lead them to make decisions that advance themselves rather than us. I remain unconvinced by them.

Anonymous said...

Once I dropped a pile of books in a corridor in the Commons (where I used to work). Most of the people standing by ignored it, but Ed Miliband helped me pick them up. I now it's not a big deal, but it's made me like him. And nothing I've seen has made me have anything less than respect for him.

I'm much more of a Blair man than a Brown man, but I make my exception for Ed Miliband.