Keir is an improvement on what went before

From Labour darling to International Rescue Committee CEO, David Miliband talks conflict, climate and Ed.

- Susannah Butter

DAVID MILIBAND is feeling a pang of homesickness. The former foreign secretary, who moved to New York in 2013 to be head of the International Rescue Committee, is thrilled when he finds out I am speaking to him from north London. Covid restrictions have kept him away from the UK for 18 months, the longest he has been away from home, “but I don’t want to feel too sorry for myself. I have large quantities of PG Tips and I’ve found a lovely shop in New York that sells sausage rolls, Crunchies and garibaldi biscuits”. He is speaking to me from his house on the Upper West Side, sitting in front of a crammed bookshelf which displays signs of his previous life — his old parliamentary red box balances on top of it, next to a sign reading “the right hon David Miliband MP”.

He served South Shields for 12 years, rising fast and heralded as a potential future prime minister until he was beaten in the leadership election by his younger brother, underdog Ed, in 2010. When he moved to New York in 2013 with his wife Louise Shackelton and two adopted sons, some saw it as seeking refuge from a family feud. That’s all history now but at one point Ed comes up in our discussion and at the mention of the E-word, Miliband mysteriously loses his wifi connection. “The signal has totally cut out,” says Miliband with a nervous laugh. “I promise it is not because you have mentioned Ed.”

Leaving politics, Miliband swapped one huge job for another. At the IRC he oversees projects in more than 40 countries around the world and “it gives you a sense of purpose; if you run an NGO you’ve got less power than if you are in government but you have fewer obstacles to yielding it”.