David Ottewell's Politics

Commiserations to Burnley. As a Derby County fan who shouted myself hoarse at Old Trafford last night, I know what it is like to come close, but not quite close enough.
Incidentally half of us Rams fans missed United’s second goal, because we were too busy watching one of our number get thrown out of the ground. There’s always one, I guess – although I’m proud of the behaviour of the other 11,999-odd.

I’ve just got back from London, where I’ve been interviewing David Miliband.
There will be much more on this in the paper tomorrow. For now I’ll tell you that the foreign secretary was extremely circumspect about George Bush (”there will be a reckoning… but one day after he leaves office is not the time”) and the government’s actions in Iraq (”history will judge… I am more concerned about the next five years”). He described Barack Obama as having the potential to be one of America’s greatest presidents, although taken in context this was not such an extraordinary claim. He had plenty to say on Gaza and human rights, too.
I still believe Mr Miliband is the most credible Labour leader after Gordon Brown. He has the brains, the charisma and, by and large, excellent political judgement. What he perhaps lacks – what a lot of young-ish, high-achieving Labour MPs lack – is the confidence to inject more of his personality into his political persona. I suppose that comes with time and experience. He also has the same problem as every other Labour MP at the moment, which is simply that he is part of the governing party. As we see from Obama, and Blair, the promise of (even quite vaguely specified) “change” is extremely powerful when a country begins to feel up against it.
One other point. Having grumbled in the past about the government’s treatment of the regional media, I have to pay tribute to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Plenty of advance notice, a decent amount of interview time with a senior Cabinet minister in advance of a major policy announcement, and very good background briefing. Excellent provision that should lead to excellent coverage on issues of real interest to our readers.