David Miliband

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Early life and education

He is the elder son of Marion Kozak and the late Marxist theoretician Ralph Miliband, a Belgian-Jewish refugee during the Second World War. David was educated at Haverstock Comprehensive School in London, then read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, obtaining first class honours. He then took a S.M. degree in Political Science in 1990 at MIT, where he was a Kennedy Scholar. He joined the Institute for Public Policy Research as a policy analyst in 1989, before becoming Tony Blair's Head of Policy in 1994. He was a major contributor to Labour's manifesto for the 1997 general election. After Labour's landslide victory in that election, Blair made him the de facto head of Downing Street's Policy Unit.

David's younger brother Ed is also an MP for the Labour Party.

Having been selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Labour stronghold of South Shields, he was elected to Parliament in the 2001 election. Barely a year after being elected, in June 2002 he was appointed as Schools Minister, a junior minister in the Department for Education and Skills. On 15 December 2004, in the reshuffle following the resignation of David Blunkett, he replaced Ruth Kelly as Cabinet Office Minister.

On May 6, 2005, following Labour's third consecutive election victory, he was elevated to the Cabinet as Minister of State for Communities and Local Government, a newly created cabinet post with responsibility for housing, planning, regeneration and local government. To appease the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, whose department was officially in charge of these portfolios, Miliband was not given the title Secretary of State, although he was a full member of the Cabinet.

On May 5 2006 following the local elections Tony Blair made a major and [almost brutal] cabinet reshuffle - his biggest since coming to power - in which Miliband replaced Margaret Beckett as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

As a protégé of Tony Blair, Miliband is regarded by many as a possible future Prime Minister. On a BBC Radio Five Live world cup phone-in on 29 June 2006, Tony Blair was asked if he had a "Wayne Rooney" figure in his cabinet - he gave Miliband as his affirmative answer.

With his American-British wife, Louise Shackleton, he adopted a newborn US baby in December 2004.

Journalist Ellee Seymour recently revealed on [her blog] the £40,000 annual cost of David Miliband's blog. [The Independent newspaper] also reported the story. However, the figure is now thought to be £8,000, [as another blogger reports].

His younger brother, the economist Ed Miliband, was elected to Parliament as the Member for Doncaster North in 2005.

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