Why Andy Burnham should bring David Miliband into his cabinet

The joke going around parliament is that Andy Burnham has been sent around 322 CVs, brushed off by ambitious MPs looking for a ministerial job in his government.

And when he is unveiled as the new Labour leader on Friday, a large number of them will be nervously checking their phones, waiting to see if they will get the call.

But it is quite possible that Mr Burnham will follow the example of Gordon Brown and then, 13 years later, Rishi Sunak, in bringing in talent from outside the current cohort to bolster his top team.

And one of those waiting to hear if he’s on that list is former foreign secretary and once-Labour leadership hopeful David Miliband.

Mr Miliband was once the standard bearer for the Blairites of the Labour party rumoured to be on the edge of an attempt to oust Mr Brown in the dying days of the 2009-10 Labour government.

But his own ambitions came to a spectacular end when his brother Ed, now the energy secretary, beat him to the Labour leadership in a moment of exquisite political theatre. By 2013, he was out of parliament and now the 61-year-old is the president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

While Mr Burnham, who served in the same cabinets as David Miliband under Sir Tony Blair and Mr Brown, appointing his former colleague might smack of getting the old band back together, there are good reasons to appoint the older brother.

David Miliband was a distinguished foreign secretary who was involved with bringing peace to Sri Lanka, building relations with India, overseeing the Lisbon Treaty with the EU and taking a robust stance on Israel.

His 13 years as president of the IRC has only built on that experience and made him a prominent and respected figure internationally.

Bringing him back would also help Mr Burnham have the broad church he aspires for in his cabinet with sensible centrist voices to balance out those such as Louise Haigh from the left of the party.

But it also injects a much needed breadth of experience, intellectual power and understanding into a cabinet that could be lacking in those qualities.

To do that, Mr Burnham would have to follow the route taken by Mr Sunak when he brought back David Cameron as his foreign secretary.

The then-prime minister had to ennoble him in the House of Lords to have him in his cabinet and appoint a strong deputy in Andrew Mitchell to be the voice of the Foreign Office in the Commons.

The Sunak government certainly benefited from the star power of Lord Cameron and a Burnham government would benefit in the same way from a Lord Miliband.

The question is, what job? It is hard to believe that Mr Miliband will come back for just any job. It will almost certainly have to be the foreign secretary role or perhaps a beefed up role of international development secretary restored to full cabinet status.

There is speculation, though, that David Miliband might once again lose out to his brother Ed, who is has been rumoured to be in line for the foreign secretary role as consolation for losing out on his preferred position as chancellor.

If Mr Burnham has any sense he will construct a cabinet that includes both brothers, bringing in their talents, expertise and experience as well as bringing together the different wings of the party they represent.