BBC News profiles the candidates: David Miliband

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

BBC News are profiling all of the Labour leadership candidates this week. Following on from Ed Balls and Andy Burnham is David Miliband, who was interviewed today.

The most striking element of the interview is David’s criticism of Gordon Brown, calling the 10p tax decision a “fiasco” – and revealing that the cabinet only found out about the proposed changes on the morning of the budget.

On the recent past for Labour, Miliband says:

“The Blair/Brown era is over. Gordon Brown promised to renew the party and renew the country. He responded in a very strong way to the international financial crisis, but we didn’t renew our political offer so the weaknesses that we identified weren’t addressed properly, a certain high-handedness, perceived lack of concern about issues of inequality, but also some of the strength that we had; strength in terms the strategic direction of the Party in the country; strength on issues like crime and anti-social behaviour were lost.”

On 10p tax, David reveals some of the events of budget day:

“The 10p rate was a fiasco really. Because we brought in the 10p rate and then it got abolished on budget morning as part of a change to the basic rate of tax from 22p to 20p. Actually it ended up confusing people about who we stood for, who’s side we were on and I think that damaged us not just in 2008 but actually beyond.”

And on his brother standing against him for the party leadership:

“Politics is temporary, but family is for life and i think that we’ve both got an understanding that you have to make sure that the family doesn’t get injured by a political race.”

The video is now available here – or you can click on the image below: