Former foreign secretary David Miliband has denounced “bloody frustrating” cuts in overseas aid by the Labour government, reports BritPanorama.
Claims that such aid spending is a waste of money makes him want to “scratch my fingernails on the chalk board” in exasperation.
In an exclusive interview, Mr Miliband, who runs the US-based International Rescue Committee (IRC), also fiercely criticises cuts in aid by the Trump administration.
In a wide-ranging discussion with the Editor-in-Chief of a leading UK newspaper, he said the cuts are to blame for the outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease in Africa, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives since May.
Mr Miliband, a cabinet minister in the administrations of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, declined to comment on his younger brother Ed’s appointment to his former role as foreign secretary by Prime Minister Andy Burnham. He praised Mr Burnham’s “open, intelligent, can-do mentality” and remarked, “He knows you have to pedal the bicycle if you want it to go forward.”
As president and chief executive of the IRC, Mr Miliband has seen its annual budget slashed from $1.5 billion to $1 billion under the Trump regime. He expressed dismay at successive cuts in international development by British governments, including Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to reduce aid spending from 0.5 per cent of national income to 0.3 per cent, compounding previous cuts made by the Conservative government.
“It is short-sighted, it’s not good for Britain, and it’s the wrong decision. I’m absolutely clear about that,” he said.
Mr Miliband emphasised the need to justify aid spending not by abstract percentages but by its life-and-death impact. “What we’ve got to say is 45 million children around the world are acutely malnourished. Britain should be part of a drive to solve that. Fourteen million women have a life-threatening episode in childbirth, and about 2 million of them die of bleeding. That is a solvable problem,” he stated.
He added, “All I’m saying is a fraction of the total spend can make a life-changing difference for people.”
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo exemplifies how funding cuts have backfired, according to Mr Miliband. Following the US government’s reduction of the IRC’s funding, he noted, “Surprise, surprise Ebola comes back because there’s no proper washing facilities, no proper latrines and no proper infection prevention and control.”
During the interview, Mr Miliband avoided reopening the notorious Labour blood feud stemming from the 2010 leadership battle with his brother Ed. He stated, “I’m not getting into that. The PM made his decisions, it’s up to him.”
Nonetheless, he dismissed the idea that Ed might reverse cuts to the UK aid budget, stating “Sadly, as I know from my previous service, the foreign secretary doesn’t control the aid budget; the chancellor of the exchequer controls the size of it.”
“The truth is the Treasury is king and queen and ace of how much is spent on different things. All the Foreign Secretary can do is to decide where to spend it,” he noted.
Mr Miliband was also noncommittal about reports suggesting he explored a cabinet comeback when Mr Burnham succeeded Mr Starmer. He said, “In the end the choices about who goes into government are for the PM. I’m not the right person to ask about that because it was never up to me what jobs to give out.”
He praised Mr Burnham, a former parliamentary colleague, for having made a good start in Number 10, citing his “urgent and purposeful positivity.” He remarked, “Andy has created a can-do mentality. He is open, he’s intelligent. Also he’s got this thing of ‘don’t take no for an answer.’”
Mr Miliband employed an anecdote from the 1960s and 1970s Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson to highlight this point: “Andy knows that you have to pedal the bicycle if you want it to go forward.”
This metaphor, frequently associated with Wilson, was originally attributed to Nye Bevan, the health minister when the National Health Service was founded in the 1940s.
