Questions to David Miliband

In early June 2010, the biggest selling local newspaper in the area where I stood as an Independent candidate, informed its readership, that they would be interviewing David Miliband and questioning him regarding his candidature for the Labour leadership.

The newspaper's web site then stated that they would be delighted to hear from anyone who wanted a question put to Miliband. Subsequently, I sent the following to the newspaper:

"I stood as an Independent candidate in the 2010 General Election and I would dearly love to have you put the following questions to David Miliband.

i) You and your brother, Mr Miliband, have been variously described as 'never having had a proper job in your life.' Do you think it's possible for someone who has only ever been employed within the political machine to empathise with and stand up for those who have spent their lives engaged in manual labour?

ii) In October 2009, Andrew Neather, (who was gloating at the time, not whistleblowing) a former government advisor to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, said this in The Evening Standard:

'THE DELIBERATE POLICY OF MINISTERS FROM LATE 2000 UNTIL AT LEAST FEBRUARY LAST YEAR… WAS TO OPEN UP THE UK TO MASS MIGRATION… MASS IMMIGRATION was the way that THE GOVERNMENT WAS GOING TO MAKE THE UK TRULY MULTICULTURAL.' Don't listen to the whingers - London needs immigrants

Were you, Mr Miliband, one of those Ministers who wanted both 'to open up the UK to mass migration' and to make the UK truly multicultural?'

iii) In the ground-breakingly courageous Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, 'Inside Britain's Israel Lobby,' (16 November 2009) David Goldberg, the Rabbi Emeritus of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, said this:

'IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, ISRAEL IS AN APARTHEID STATE. There is no two ways about it. When settlers travel on one road and Palestinians have to use another road; WHEN SETTLERS ARE GOVERNED BY ISRAELI LAW AND PALESTINIANS ARE GOVERNENED BY MILITARY LAW, YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT APARTHEID.' The Israel lobby in Britain

Do you agree that with the learned Rabbi, Mr Miliband? Do you consider Israel to be an apartheid state?

iv) During the 3 June 2009 edition of Channel 4 News, veteran Labour left-winger, Tony Benn, said this:

'BLAIR WAS A TORY. HE TOOK OVER MRS THATCHER’S ECONOMIC POLICY AND TRIED TO FOLLOW IT. THIS CRISIS IS A CRISIS OF THATCHERISM AND BLAIRISM... People are really, really angry about the EXPENSES… There was no referendum on Lisbon, WHICH WAS PROMISED. They’re privatising part of the post office, WHICH THEY PROMISED NOT TO DO. There’s a war in Afghanistan which WE WERE NEVER CONSULTED ABOUT. THERE’S A LOT OF MONEY FOR THE BANKERS BUT NO HELP FOR THE PEOPLE.'

Do you think, Mr Miliband, that Tony Benn was right to describe Blairism, the expenses scandal, the absence of an EU referendum, the Afghan War, the privatisation of the post office, the bankers and the lack of 'help for the people' during the time of Tony, as he did here? If so, are you prepared to apologise for any of the things Tony Benn seems so critical of?

Early in 2009, Frank Field, a former New Labour Minister, said this:

'His (Gordon Brown's) claim to have provided British jobs for British workers is as hollow as it could be... OF THE THREE MILLION JOBS CREATED IN THE LAST DECADE, NINE OUT OF 10 HAVE GONE TO PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT BRITISH.'

You were there when this policy was being pursued, Mr Milband. What is your explanation for it?

v) On 1 October 2009, Frank Field cited this even more chilling figure in The Telegraph:

'In my constituency of Birkenhead, THERE ARE NOW MORE VIOLENT CRIMES AGAINST THE PERSON THAN THERE WERE IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY 50 YEARS AGO!' Let the decent citizens reclaim our streets!

You, Mr Miliband, were at the heart of the governance of this country for 13 years. Are you ashamed at the role you played in the creation of the statistic quoted by Mr Field?

vi) Professor Ted Cantle, Tony Blair's senior race relations advisor at the time of the Oldham Riots, is on record as having said:

'Areas of Notts. and Derbyshire do seem to be UNHEALTHILY ALL-WHITE.'

Do you, Mr Miliband think that this mostly white Nottinghamshire constituency is 'unheathily all-white?'

vii) On 30 November 2009, former New Labour Minister, Tom Harris, said this on his own blog:

'Labour had, in the past, been GUILTY of attempting to SHUT DOWN DEBATES ON IMMIGRATION BY SHOUTING 'RACIST'... IT WAS STUPID AND WRONG... I DETECT A HUGE AMOUNT OF SNOBBERY FROM SOME ON THE LIBERAL LEFT... We are way, way past the point where WE CAN SNEER 'RACIST' at good people for daring to hold a view with which we’re uncomfortable.'

Would you, Mr Miliband, describe yourself as one of those snobs from the 'liberal left' who tried to 'shut down debate on immigration by shouting racist'? And have you ever 'sneered racist' at good people for daring to hold a view with which you are 'uncomfortable?'

viii) You and your brother, Mr Miliband, are the sons of a Jewish immigrant. Do you think it’s likely that a Jewish person, whose ethnic community comprises just 0.05% of the UK population, would be able empathise fully with, and stand up for, a British majority with whom he may have so little in common?

ix) You voted for the invasion of Iraq, Mr Milband, and, at the Chilcot Inquiry, you were still justifying it. So, perhaps you could tell me, firstly, what do you think of the role of the US Neoconservative movement in the push for war with Iraq?

x) Secondly, what do you, as a Jew yourself, think of the fact that most of the leading members of the Neoconservative movement that forced the Iraq War upon the world are Jewish?

(Please wait for Mr Milband to reply to the above before facing him with this quote by Ari Shavit, the leading political journalist of the Israeli daily, Haaretz. )

'The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, MOST OF THEM JEWISH, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history.' (3 April 2003) White man's burden

xi) Mr Miliband, your father, Ralph, was an avowed Marxist who, upon his arrival in England as a Jewish refugee, in 1940, was moved to write the following in his diary: 'The Englishman is a rabid nationalist... When you hear the English talk of this war YOU SOMETIMES ALMOST WANT THEM TO LOSE IT to lose it to show them how things are.'

Did you ever, Mr Miliband, have words with your father for harbouring such foul, anti-English beliefs? Do you think now that such disgraceful ingratitude towards those who had just given him sanctuary was appropriate?

xii) In the 1955 essay, The Political Ideas of Harold Laski, your father wrote the following:

'The first duty of a Labour Government, he insisted, was to come to terms, despite all difficulties, WITH THE COMMUNIST WORLD. Nothing that has happened since he died suggests that duty to be LESS IMPERATIVE OR LESS URGENT.'

So, here we see that both your father and his mentor, Harold Laski, (also Jewish) believed that accommodation should have been made with a regime that was known to have murdered tens of millions of its own citizens.

Do you agree with your father and Mr Laski regarding the accomodation they would have pursued with Soviet Communism, Mr Miliband? Also, is it true that your grandfather, Sam Miliband, was a soldier in Trotsky's Red Army?

xiii) The 6 April 2008 edition of The Sunday Times informed us thus:

'The family of David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was branded UNTRUSTWORTHY AND MISLEADING BY HOME OFFICE AND FOREIGN OFFICE OFFICIALS WHEN IT TRIED TO MIGRATE TO BRITAIN, documents to be released tomorrow will reveal. The Foreign Secretary will find HIS DEPARTMENT THOUGHT THAT HIS FATHER AND GRANDFATHER… LIED TO IMMIGRATION OFFICERS…

A hand-written Home Office report from March 8, 1949, doubts the Milibands’ honesty, stating: ‘MILIBAND, FATHER AND SON, HAVE SO MISREPRESENTED THE CASE IN THE PAST, I AM AFRAID WE CAN PLACE NO RELIANCE ON THEIR STATEMENTS’.'

So, Mr Miliband, were Home Office and Foreign Office officials right to describe your father and grandfather as 'untrustworthy and misleading' liars?

xiv) On 27 August 2009, Leo McKinstry, who was once a Labour Councillor and an aide to Harriet Harman no less, commented thus in The Daily Express:

'IN OUR MODERN AGE, PATRIOTISM IS DESPISED RATHER THAN ADMIRED. FOR THE MARXIST IDEOLOGUES WHO NOW RUN BRITAIN, LOVE OF COUNTRY IS A VICE, NOT A VIRTUE...

Thanks to the predominance of MULTI-CULTURAL DOGMA, the patriotic instinct that led to national salvation in 1945 is now treated as A THOUGHT CRIME. The sense of unifying national identity that once motivated millions of Britons to defend their homeland is held to be suspect by A POLITICAL ELITE OBSESSED WITH CULTURAL DIVERSITY. We are told that OPPOSITION to MASS IMMIGRATION IS THE EQUIVALENT OF SIDING WITH THE NAZIS.'

Are you one of those who views patriotism as a 'thought crime,' Mr Milband? Are you one of those who believes, as your father appears to have done, that, 'love of country' is a vice not a virtue?

xv) On 15 April 2002, John Kampfner reported thus in The New Statesman:

'The roots of the British government's current policy towards the Middle East can be traced back to a single event... Brighton in the autumn of 1994. To define yourself as new Labour, you had to prove your credentials as PRO-BUSINESS, anti-tax AND PRO-ISRAEL,' says one party official. 'Palestinian sympathies were the preserve of the old left and WE QUITE SIMPLY HAD TO GET RID OF OURS IF WE WANTED TO GET ON.'

At Blair's first party conference as leader, Labour Friends of Israel assembled in a huge turnout for its main meeting of the week. EVERY ASPIRING YOUNG APPARACHIK FELT THE NEED TO ATTEND. THEY DID THEN. THEY STILL DO.'

In the aforementioned documentary, 'Inside Britain's Israel Lobby,' its creator, the journalist Peter Oborne, told us this: 'We've been reliably informed that donations from all CFI members and their businesses add up to well over £10 million over the last eight years. THAT'S MORE THAN ANY OTHER LOBBY IN WESTMINSTER.

IT WAS UNDER TONY BLAIR THAT THE ISRAEL LOBBY FIRST ACQUIRED REAL INFLUENCE IN GOVERNMENT. Former Chairman of the Labour Friends of Israel, John Mendelssohn, boasted: ‘ZIONISM IS PERVASIVE IN NEW LABOUR. IT'S AUTOMATIC THAT BLAIR WILL COME TO LABOUR FRIENDS OF ISRAEL MEETINGS'.

TODAY MENDELSSOHN IS LABOUR'S CHIEF FUNDRAISER AND LABOUR FRIENDS OF ISRAEL HAVE SENT EVEN MORE MPS TO ISRAEL THAN HAS THE CFI!'

In the introductory note to Oborne's documentary, this is also said: 'The Conservative Friends of Israel was founded in 1974 by the Conservative MP Michael Fidler. (Jewish) Since then it has emerged as a powerful lobby group. By 1984, THE CONSERVATIVE PRIME MINISTER, MARGARET THATCHER, HAD BEEN PREVAILED ON TO BECOME CHAIRMAN OF THE CFI BRANCH AT HER LOCAL FINCHLEY CONSTITUENCY.'

As is this: 'The Labour Friends of Israel was founded in 1957 at a public rally at that year’s Labour Party Conference... It has very close ties with the Israeli Labour Party...

One of Tony Blair’s first acts on becoming an MP in 1983 was TO JOIN THE LABOUR FRIENDS OF ISRAEL. He remained close to the group throughout his career, regularly appearing at their events.'

Sir Richard Dalton, a former UK Ambassador, had this to say in the documentary: 'What's unique about the pro-Israeli lobbies is that THEY HAVE SUCH GOOD ACCESS TO POLITICIANS, THEY OFTEN OPERATE BEHIND THE SCENES AND THEY HAVE PRIMARY REGARD, EVEN THOUGH THEY MAY COME FROM BRITAIN, NOT TO THE INTERESTS OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE... BUT THE INTERESTS OF ANOTHER COUNTRY!'

So, Mr Miliband, as a Jewish person yourself, do you think it’s right that an ethnic group which, as previously stated, comprises just 0.05% of the British population, should have an influence upon our politicians out of all proportion to their numbers within the community as a whole? For that matter, do you think it’s right that such a small ethnic grouping should have two of its members challenging for the leadership of the Labour Party?

Your sincerely...

(My name)

PS. As (name of the sitting MP) is the Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Anti-Semitism, oerhaps you could put some of the questions cited above to him as well?"

Despite inquiring of the journalist who liaised with me throughout the General Election, another senior journalist and a deputy editor, (four queries altogether) I never received a response. Not from the aforementioned or David Miliband.

This, in spite of the fact that the request for questions remained in the newspaper for some time.

I kept a close watch for any report of David Miliband having put himself forward to be interviewed, as the paper said he would be, but I'm sure no such interview ever took place.