As acts of political fratricide go, few were as public — or petulant — as Ed Miliband’s defenestration of his elder brother David. After Ed beat David to the Labour Party leadership in 2010, the pair attempted an awkward hug — but there was no disguising David’s bitterness. He refused to join Ed’s shadow cabinet and resigned as an MP three years later. After Labour lost the 2015 general election, he accused his brother of “taking the party backwards”.
How times change.
Today, I can reveal that David is set to be the recipient of a lucrative apology. Speaking to Labour Conference last week, Ed Miliband — now the Secretary of State at the Department for Net Zero and Energy Security — pledged to construct an “armoury of clean power” for the United Kingdom, in order to make its electricity system “net zero” by 2030. What he didn’t mention, however, was that his brother is being paid by a venture capital outfit whose profits are likely to increase in the process.
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When David Miliband stepped down from Parliament, his MP’s salary was a modest £66,000. But that was only a small portion of his income. In his final entry in the Commons interests register, he declared he was also being paid £100,000 a year as chairman of Sunderland Football Club, and £92,840 as an adviser to a green investment fund. To top up his account, he also accepted almost £65,000 for appearing at a London forum hosted by the foreign ministry of the United Arab Emirates.
Just over a decade later, David has refashioned himself as a man of virtue: he lives in New York, where he runs International Rescue, a US-based charity that supports people in humanitarian crises. For his services, however, he receives a princely sum. In 2022, he took home a salary of $1,253,728, as well as a bonus of $150,000.
For such a level of remuneration, and with such a workload, one might expect David to be busy with the day job. Yet somehow, for more than four years he has found the time to fit in an additional job: in September 2020, five months after his brother became shadow energy secretary in Sir Keir Starmer’s new shadow cabinet, it was revealed that David had become a paid advisor to Giant Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm that has a particular focus on green technology and energy. Following a series of earlier investments, it recently launched a new “climate focused growth fund” and claims it wants to invest a further $1 billion in “sustainable technologies” by the end of the decade.
All of which may seem perfectly in fitting with David’s form when it comes to juggling multiple jobs. Except for one thing: at least two of the companies Giant Ventures has invested in are likely to prosper as a direct result of decisions made by the new government. In other words, David now works for a company that stands to profit from climate policies introduced by his brother Ed.
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Subscribe“I know it was you, Ed. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!”
The gradual decline into socialism and how the grifters benefit. This is not business as usual. Business under normal terms must grow, it can’t stand still. That’s both a good and bad thing. But socialism makes it unnecessary to grow, unnecessary to develop business practices and product. There is no growth, there’s just the squeezing of the tax payer with multiple taxes with the promise of the traditional socialist shining future, and scooping out the profits until the animal is dead.
If there’s is a national identity to England it’s dazed animals being led to the slaughter. Of course England isn’t alone, but it’s further down the Marxist road than others, even if they’re told different. There is very little resistance. The government turns people against people. I don’t see the same political engagement as I see in Europe, who is often regarded as ever ready to go down the socialist road. The national identity of England, commented on in another story, could very well be its end.
Words fail me. In a healthy media ecosystem, this would become a national scandal. I’m not holding my breath.