Did David Miliband learn from Brown's mistake?
By Ned Simons - 2nd November 2010
David Miliband made his first contribution to the Commons chamber this afternoon, with a surprise appearance in health questions.
Gordon Brown's intervention in the Commons last night, his first since his last outing at PMQs in April, left most observers wondering why it took him so long.
His long absence gave the unfortunate impression that he had returned to the chamber just to silence growing chatter about his whereabouts.
There was a clear lesson here for David Miliband: get your return out of the way before people notice you are gone and catch everyone by surprise to avoid the inevitable media circus.
The defeated leadership candidate's last contribution in the Commons chamber was on September 14th, his last outing as shadow foreign secretary at Foreign Office questions.
Miliband asked William Hague why a delegation of European foreign ministers, including the foreign secretary, was not heading out to the Middle East to engage in the peace process.
Until today the last recorded intervention Miliband made was to ask Hague: "Is it not true that there is a real danger of having an absent Foreign Secretary and not an active Foreign Secretary when the people of the Middle East most need an active one?"
Miliband obviously recognised the need to contribute to the chamber before people start asking whether the voters of South Shields had an absent rather than an active MP.
Article Comments
'His long absence gave the unfortunate impression that he had returned to the chamber just to silence growing chatter about his whereabouts.'
The only reason that was even as issue is because of the deal Guido and other Torys/closet Torys made of it. It's no different from the Hague thing. If people bang on about him being gay enough, he can either a) Stay silent and people assume its true because he hasn't denied it, or b) Confront it and then everyone claims he's trying too hard to deny it, so he must be gay.
Someone sent me a link to this post the other day that makes a fair point:
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2010/11/01/former-prime-ministers-dont-usually-say-much-in-the-commons/
Chris
2nd Nov 2010 at 4:06 pm
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