You won't like Brown, says Blairite minister

13 April 2012

Environment minister David Miliband last night made an apparent gaffe by suggesting voters will not be able to put up with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister.

The arch-Blairite predicted that in a few months "people will be saying 'wouldn't it be great to have that Blair back because we can't stand that Gordon Brown'."

Speaking on BBC 1's Question Time he quickly clarified his remarks to say that Mr Brown would be a 'very successful' premier.

Mr Miliband tried to explain himself by saying he was merely trying to show that whoever is in charge will always be unpopular.

The remarks are all the more surprising coming from a minister famed for his discretion, and one who has recently repositioned himself closer to Gordon Brown.

Mr Miliband, 41, has long been a close aide to Mr Blair, and used to head the Number 10 Policy unit before being elected MP for South Shields in 2001.

Many fellow Blairites expected he would put himself forward as a leadership challenger to Mr Brown.

However, he has recently surprised many observers in Westminster by publicly endorsing the Chancellor.

Asked to explain his statement, Mr Miliband said: "Whoever's in, it's one of those things in government, people have a whack at you.

"That's part of the joy of politics. What I will say is that this country is richer, fairer, more confident than it was ten years ago and we should be grateful for it.

"I think Gordon Brown will be the Prime Minister, but I think that in politics it is at election time that people make their judgments."

He went on to say that Mr Blair has a right to choose when he steps down and denied that decisions in government had been paralysed by uncertainty about his departure.

But other panellists said Mr Blair had hung around too long. LibDem Simon Hughes said Mr Blair had 'lost the confidence of his own party' with ministers 'saying their own thing'.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in