This sounds like an oblique reference to the Iraq war, which Ed Miliband said
led to "a catastrophic loss of trust" and Ed Balls condemned as "wrong."
Asked directly about those remarks, he says: "The purpose of these
elections is how we build a better tomorrow, not how we debate a better
yesterday." Is that a rebuke to his brother? "No, it's just my
position."
But I suspect that David Miliband, who – unlike the two Eds – had a vote in
2003, still agonises over Iraq. Nor, with the Chilcot inquiry reconvened,
and the war raised at every hustings and meeting, can it easily be consigned
to history. "I've done Chilcot. I've said if I knew then what I know
now, I wouldn't have [backed] it."
Is he saying the war should never have been fought? "The way I put it is
that if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn't have been a war. I've
set out that if we knew there were no WMD, there would have been no UN
resolutions and no war.
"The toll in British and Iraqi life, never mind the toll in trust, has
been very, very high. It's a war we didn't need to fight," he says
before reverting to his previous formula, saying he is mindful of the dead
and doesn't want to "rewrite my own history."
He pauses, conscious that he has gone further than he intended. But his
regrets and reservations over Iraq sound at least equal to those of his
brother and Mr Balls? "Of course. People are dead. I voted in good
faith." Did his brother ever express his misgivings to him? "I'm
not getting into opening up private discussions," he says. "He was
in America at the time."
The other lingering issue of his old brief will surface shortly, with the
Government expected to announce a judge-led inquiry into claims that British
intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terrorism suspects.
Mr Miliband hotly denies any policy of collusion. "I would not be sitting
here if I thought there was the slightest suspicion of a doubt that a Labour
government had any entanglement in torture." On last week's High Court
order that M15 and M16 release guidelines alleged to tell British agents to
turn a blind eye to the treatment of terrorism suspects abroad, he says. "After
2001, there was insufficient training and guidelines. That has been
superseded and new guidelines put in place."
