by Michael Huntsman

Created on: June 30, 2007   Last Updated: July 01, 2007

One of the more eye-catching appointments in Gordon Brown's new Junta was that of David Milliband to be Foreign Secretary. This may well come to be seen as the most Machiavellian move in his clearing out of Blair's Augean Stables. Milliband has instantly been promoted to be Heir Apparent, but as he is seen as a dedicated Blairite by the Brown Militia, is also seen as someone to be stymied in his advancement.

In those circumstances, what better place to put him than the Foreign Office? Here he has no domestic money to spend with which he can curry favour with individual constituency MPs and thus build up his own power base within the party. Modern Prime Ministers do most of the serious foreign affairs stuff anyway, so Milliband will find himself with Brown glaring over his shoulder almost all of the time. Inevitably if something goes right Brown will quickly grab the credit for himself. If it goes wrong, well Brown won't be there, will he? And Foreign Affairs has so many opportunities for things to go wrong: just ask Lord Carrington!

With the continuing refusal by Brown to honour Labour's Manifesto pledge to have a referendum on the new EU Constitution Amending Treaty, Milliband will have to bear much of the brunt of the righteous indignation of the British people who have so shamefully been denied their right to give or withhold their whole-hearted consent to our extinction as a nation state. In addition, by convention, he will be unable to speak out much on domestic policy matters which are the preserve of his fellow Cabinet members, save to appear on the BBC's "Question Time" where he will find himself forced to defend the latest act of serial incompetence perpetrated by one of Brown's other inspired appointments.

With all the enthusiasm that was generated by Blairites for Milliband as a possible contestant in the leadership stakes, it was easy to overlook the important question about Milliband: what has he actually achieved? Not an easy one to answer: answers on the back of an envelope, please.

In his last incarnation in charge of farming and the environment Milliband continued to preside over the inept farm subsidies system that his predecessors, Margaret Beckett and Lord Bach, had singularly failed to make work properly, to the grave detriment of our hard pressed farmers and seems to have done not a great deal to remedy the damage that his party has done. Nor does he appear to have cared much for it, being obsessed with headline catching stuff about wind farms

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