David Miliband's Quotes

Good politics starts with empathy, proceeds to analysis, then sets out values and establishes the vision, before getting to the nitty-gritty of policy solutions.

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.

I am the 'change Britain' candidate. We can only change Britain through a united Labour Party and I am the unity candidate. I have got support from the Left and the Right of the party.

I can't admit to myself that the creation of a Palestinian state won't happen. What I know is that with each passing year it gets more and more difficult to happen, not least because there is more and more bloodshed, generation upon generation.

I mean, Britain is a country of successful Muslim businesspeople, teachers and educators, journalists. So, we have to say very strongly that the two million plus Muslims in Britain, the vast bulk of them make a huge contribution to our society, and they actually make it the vibrant society it is.

I've learnt that, sometimes, how others see you is not the same as how you see yourself. I've learnt about how you can be multitasking - and sometimes other people see that you're multitasking. And that's not very nice for them.

In Britain, the centrally prescribed welfare to work system short-changes the young unemployed. Transport, housing and education are over centralised.

Israelis and Palestinians are suspicious of each other and of promises from outside. But the need for a negotiated solution between the parties should not stymie international clarity and consensus about the endgame in terms of borders and other issues.

My advice is very simple: if you can win a small battle, it gives you confidence in the political process to take on bigger battles, and so it is very much a bottom-up grass-roots way of doing politics.

My memories are of my dad taking me to football on Saturday mornings, and my mum taking me swimming. Those are the things I remember from my childhood, not sitting around the table debating capitalism and the profit squeeze.

One of the jewels in the crown of Labour's time in office was the rescue of the National Health Service. As the Commonwealth Fund, the London School of Economics and the Nuffield Foundation have all shown, health reforms as well as additional investment were essential to improved outcomes, especially for poorer patients.

One of the things about the modern world is that the public and the private - which is not the same as the public and the personal - but the public and the private... it's very, very much harder than it used to be to have things that are private and things that are public.

One thing that I feel very, very strongly is that we talk about Islamic countries, Islamic people, Islamic leaders, as either moderates or extremists. It's almost like there are only two categories of Muslims. And actually, that doesn't show respect. It shows lack of understanding of the diversity of Muslim thought.

The 1970s - I was ten in 1975 - were a bad decade in all sorts of ways but the middle class had comfortable assumptions about the prospects for its children. The middle class was smaller then; it was a much less competitive Britain, less meritocratic.

The big risk to British lives in 2013 is in Afghanistan. Our troops, diplomats and aid workers have made a big contribution there. But while there is an end date for Western engagement, 2014, there isn't a proper end game.

The biggest novelty of 2013 will be new leadership in China. Very little is known about the views of the new leaders - who will rule the country for ten years. But we do know they're the first generation of Chinese leaders who have spent the majority of their lives in a China 'opening up' to the rest of the world.

The problems that the world faces - from nuclear proliferation to climate change - can't be tackled by the West alone. They need a coalition of not just West and East, but they need a coalition of Christian and Jew and Muslim.

The two biggest threats to international security in 2013 are Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and Iran being bombed to stop it getting a nuclear weapon. Both would precipitate a long and dangerous conflict in an already unstable Middle East. Both would be a disaster.

The wedding ring on my left hand was bought by my grandfather, Samuel Miliband, in Brussels in 1920. I never knew him, as he died when I was one. But his ring was kept by my aunt until it was placed on my finger by my wife Louise 32 years later.

The whole of government needs to contribute to the shared goal of restructuring the British economy. But that means taking on the myth that the Treasury either knows best or can run it all. It just doesn't.

There is a danger for Britain as we perceive ourselves, or as we are - less wealthy, facing economic austerity - that we essentially draw back. I think there is a recoil in parts of the country, and in parts of the government actually, from the multilateral system, and I think that's dangerous and wrong.

Today, Labour has a disruptive economic narrative - that Britain needs fundamental change in its market structure and culture to compete in the modern world.

We keep the terrorist threat to the United Kingdom under very careful scrutiny. We think it's right to keep the public informed about the general threat level.

We know there can be no justice in the Middle East without a Palestinian state. But there can be no security in the Middle East without a Palestinian state.

What is the big political issue for Britain at the moment? Without wishing to sound portentous, it is about whether we can build a social democratic settlement, whether we can lay the political and cultural foundations for the next several years.

In the end, human history is made up of all our decisions.