Ed Miliband

Former Labour leader, Ed Miliband, is now Secretary of State for Energy. A role more important than ever with surging energy costs due to the conflict in Iran. Born in 1969, Ed grew up in London’s Primrose Hill. His father, a Marxist academic, and his mother a human rights activist, Ed’s life was steeped in politics from the beginning. After attending a local state school in North London, he followed in the the footsteps of his older brother, David, to Oxford University and then to the Labour party where Ed climbed the ranks from advisor to MP. The Miliband brothers battled for the leadership in a historic contest that played out in front of the nation. Ed pipped David at the post, becoming leader of the Labour party in 2010. After losing the general election to David Cameron in 2015, Ed Miliband stepped away from front line politics. But after coming back into the political spotlight when Keir Starmer appointed him Energy Secretary in 2024, does he have his eye on leadership again?

Bernard Ponsonby: “I’m not sure in a sense who would lead them. I’m sure that… …Wes Streeting would run. I suspect that there would be some people within the PLP — because the minute somebody says they’re running, there’s always an alternative campaign which is not really about supporting one candidate, it’s about stopping another . John Major effectively became prime minister because he wasn’t Michael Heseltine. So I think there would be people who would start looking at Ed Miliband . And then, of course, there’s Angela Rayner… …and at that point, the markets will collectively take to their lavatory pans .” Alex Massie: “Yeah, I mean, I think, although he says he’s done the job before and he doesn’t want to do it again, I think Ed Miliband is the one to keep an eye on there . It seems to me that Miliband occupies a sort of comforting place on the political spectrum for a lot of the parliamentary Labour Party and indeed for the Labour Party membership. I do not see Wes Streeting being acceptable to either the parliamentary party or the membership. And there’s the further complication for him that his parliamentary majority is only 500 votes — there is a really good chance he could lose at the next election. And I think that would also concentrate minds in an anti-Streeting kind of way.” Bernard Ponsonby: “I genuinely have no idea who would actually win it… I don’t think the PLP has coalesced around any one individual yet. But yes — there will always be people trying to stop someone rather than elect someone. And Miliband will be looked at.” Focussing on UK, Scottish and Global politics, if you like other great political podcasts like The Rest is Politics, The News Agents, Newscast, Questions Time, Holyrood Sources, Planet Holyrood, The Stooshie, The Steamie, Scotcast, Americast etc etc then The Ponsonby and Massie Podcast could be a great show to add to your list of favourites. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Ed Miliband take on Richard Tice in a Misfits Boxing Match for the future of Net-Zero? We’ve got the exclusive 🤣 It’s been an exhilarating 10 days of b2b conferences and a huge milestone for What’s Left as we interviewed ex-Labour leader, Energy Secretary of State Ed Miliband and Kamala Harris’ immigration tsar Frank Sharry! In this episode we’ve got something a bit different for you – a buy one get one free. The first half is an interview with Miliband, where we discuss the challenges of urgently lowering bills and industrial energy costs, while delivering new jobs. We all know Reform is on the offensive, but Miliband is up for the fight against Tice and his legion of chronically online climate change deniers. LPC was a curious bubble, with attendees drifting from ‘complacency to cynicism’. The vibe, as Ed pointed out, was “anxious”. We felt the PM delivered a punchy speech against Farage, framing the next election as Labour vs Reform - but will it be enough to pull together a fractured and divided left? Deindustrialisation, how the PM has handled Trump, and ofc my Issey Miyake trousers also feature in our convo w Ed… Honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen a Labour politician look more natural and relatable in an interview for quite some time. But then again, we didn’t have enough time to truly get into the weeds of policy. Ed you’ll have to come back for some more scrutiny! The 2nd half of the ep joins us at the Global Progress Action Summit (think centre-left CPAC!) which saw the PM announce digital ID cards in a bid to tackle illegal immigration. Once polling at +35%, support has cratered to -19, demonstrating a govt severely lacking in trust to deliver the change the country needs. Now even Palantir has come out against the policy, which may be surprising to some, but consider their current PR troubles and the type of access they could acquire under a Reform govt. Maybe twisting the knife is in their interest? Frank Sharry, the Biden-Harris border security policy tsar was kind enough to give us an interview on how the centre-left responds to the challenge of illegal immigration. He makes a compelling argument for Labour to change tack and become the party of both immigration and controlled borders. We also discuss the government’s £5bn high-street regeneration plan - the exact sort of policy that could go some distance in galvanising community spirit in the places hit worst by the cost of living crisis. It’s a brilliant policy. So why do we hear so little about it? Ofc, we were delighted to be invited to GPAS and to discuss with leading experts of the Left how we unite against populism. But, I can’t help feeling that we’re still lacking the radicalism we need at such a crisis point in our politics. It’s not looking good brev but we’re still holding out hope. Follow us @wtf_is.left + fix up as we organise against the Right. Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:08 Cold Water Swimming, Chappell Roan + Mental Health 05:50 Fears of Reform + Radical Right 12:20 Taking the Fight to Richard Tice 18:30 Challenges for Net-Zero 24:26 Cutting Edge Communication 27:47 Our Verdict on Ed 32:57 Global Progress Action Summit 38:45 Starmer’s Digital ID Gamble 45:40 AI + Growth Agenda 50:10 Best Policy for Fighting Populism 53:00 Interview with Frank Sharry - Biden/Harris Immigration Tsar 58:35 Farage Copying Trump’s Playbook 1:07:08 American Authoritarianism Backsliding

Labour leader Ed Miliband awkwardly ate a bacon sandwich at New Covent Garden Market on 21st May, 2014. Mid-bite, eyes squinting, lips oddly parted, and fingers clumsily gripping the sandwich - it was an instantly meme-able moment. The British press pounced. The photo became a viral sensation, with endless edits, spoofs, and headlines suggesting Miliband wasn’t “human enough” to relate to the average voter. It was a perfect storm of bad optics, class-coded food politics, and the relentless image-focused nature of modern campaigning. The idea that someone couldn’t even eat a sandwich “properly” became, bizarrely, a shorthand for unrelatability. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly unpick why this accidental photocall continued to resonate a year later, becoming a ‘defining image’ of the 2015 general election; recall how David Cameron swerved a similar encounter with a hot dog; and discover how the Google results for this iconic moment have been somewhat interfered with… Further Reading: • ’Is this the moment Ed realised that the man who sold him this bacon sandwich is voting Tory? Labour leader's nationwide tour gets off to a difficult start’ (Mail Online, 2014): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2634977/Is-moment-Ed-realised-man-sold-bacon-sandwich-voting-Tory-Labour-leaders-nationwide-tour-gets-difficult-start.html • ‘The Defining Image of the British Election’ (The Atlantic, 2015): https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/ed-miliband-bacon-british-election/392867/ • ’Ed Miliband: 'The bacon sandwich didn't lose me the election'’ (LBC, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O38SKEBPohU Love the show? Support us! Join 🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY… … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content. Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if Ed Miliband won the 2015 General Election? Join us as we take special guest historical vandal, bilingual stand up Steffan Alun, for a joyride through alternative history in his time machine of choice. Steffan takes us back in time using a magical amulet possessed by a disgruntled Australian genie to the good old days of 2015, where he sets up a rogue electioneering machine fuelled by Cambridge Analytica's data farms, while also training the mild mannered Labour Leader how to eat a bacon sandwich properly, sweeping him to power by nefarious means. What would chaos with Ed Miliband look like? Would Brexit have ever happened? Is voting Lib Dem the biggest mistake you can make in life? Listen now to find out all this, and much more! Errata: David Miliband left the house of commons in 2013 and did not stand as an MP in GE2015 - so the idea of him being the only Labour candidate not to win in a 649 seat landslide is simply not realistic. Historical Vandal: @SteffanAlun Watch Academi Gomedi: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0kp6b5r Place holder for Edinburgh Fringe Tickets: TBC What if History | Counterfactual History | Alternative History Podcast | Ed Miliband 2015 Election

This week: Miliband’s empty energy promises. Ed Miliband has written a public letter confirming that Labour plans to decarbonise the electricity system by 2030. The problem with this, though, is that he doesn’t have the first idea about how to do it. The grid doesn’t have the capacity to transmit the required energy, Ross Clark writes, and Miliband’s claim that wind is ‘nine times cheaper’ than fossil fuels is based upon false assumptions. What is more, disclosed plans about ‘GB Energy’ reveal that Miliband’s pet project isn’t really a company at all – but an investment scheme. This empty vessel will funnel taxpayer money into the hands of private companies rather than produce any energy itself. To discuss, Lara and Will were joined by Shaun Spiers, executive director of the Green Alliance and Stanley Johnson, former MEP, environmental campaigner and author of the new book In the footsteps of Marco Polo deals extensively on China’s energy problems and opportunities. (02:26) Then: Lara and Will take us through some of their favourite pieces from the magazine, including the lead book review and Catriona Olding’s Still Life column. Next: meet Nigel Farage’s millionaire Reform chairman. The Reform party has a new poster boy, the 37-year-old party Chairman Zia Yusuf. Self-dubbed a ‘British Muslim patriot’, Yusuf is a former Goldman Sachs partner and tech owner with an expensive taste for cars. He is tasked with transforming Farage’s outfit from a limited company into a proper party. You can read James Heale’s full interview with Yusuf in this week’s magazine, but they have kindly allowed us to hear a section of their discussion on the podcast. They talk about the Nigel Farage effect and Lee Anderson’s comments about Sadiq Khan. (18:34) And finally: should we feel sorry for restaurant critics? Angus Colwell, The Spectator’s assistant online editor, writes about the plight of the restaurant critic and the stresses of doing what many would consider the best job in the world. To discuss further, Angus joined us alongside the Observer’s restaurant critic Jay Rayner, whose new book Nights Out, At Home celebrates his 25 years as a food critic and is available to buy now. (29:41) Hosted by Lara Prendergast and William Moore. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts . Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: Miliband’s empty energy promises. Ed Miliband has written a public letter confirming that Labour plans to decarbonise the electricity system by 2030. The problem with this, though, is that he doesn’t have the first idea about how to do it. The grid doesn’t have the capacity to transmit the required energy, Ross Clark writes, and Miliband’s claim that wind is ‘nine times cheaper’ than fossil fuels is based upon false assumptions. What is more, disclosed plans about ‘GB Energy’ reveal that Miliband’s pet project isn’t really a company at all – but an investment scheme. This empty vessel will funnel taxpayer money into the hands of private companies rather than produce any energy itself. To discuss, Lara and Will were joined by Shaun Spiers, executive director of the Green Alliance and Stanley Johnson, former MEP, environmental campaigner and author of the new book In the footsteps of Marco Polo deals extensively on China’s energy problems and opportunities. (02:26) Then: Lara and Will take us through some of their favourite pieces from the magazine, including the lead book review and Catriona Olding’s Still Life column. Next: meet Nigel Farage’s millionaire Reform chairman. The Reform party has a new poster boy, the 37-year-old party Chairman Zia Yusuf. Self-dubbed a ‘British Muslim patriot’, Yusuf is a former Goldman Sachs partner and tech owner with an expensive taste for cars. He is tasked with transforming Farage’s outfit from a limited company into a proper party. You can read James Heale’s full interview with Yusuf in this week’s magazine, but they have kindly allowed us to hear a section of their discussion on the podcast. They talk about the Nigel Farage effect and Lee Anderson’s comments about Sadiq Khan. (18:34) And finally: should we feel sorry for restaurant critics? Angus Colwell, The Spectator’s assistant online editor, writes about the plight of the restaurant critic and the stresses of doing what many would consider the best job in the world. To discuss further, Angus joined us alongside the Observer’s restaurant critic Jay Rayner, whose new book Nights Out, At Home celebrates his 25 years as a food critic and is available to buy now. (29:41) Hosted by Lara Prendergast and William Moore. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons.

I absolutely loved this interview. Whatever your preconceptions about politicians, please set them aside, because you're about to meet Ed Miliband: former leader of the Labour Party, current shadow business secretary, fellow podcaster and author of a new book, Go Big: How To Fix Our World. Ed joins me to discuss his failure to win the 2015 general election, suffering from anxiety, failing to get the degree he worked so hard for and a failure to keep his late father, the noted Marxist academic Ralph Miliband, alive. We touch on his family history - both his parents escaped Nazi Germany and many of his relatives were killed in the Holocaust - and we consider whether carrying the hopes and dreams of previous generations makes him feel more duty-bound to succeed. Along the way, we discuss therapy, competitive swimming with Alastair Campbell, political optimism, the power of big ideas, bacon sandwiches, Ed-stones, Milibae, sibling rivalry (yes, I do ask him how things are with his brother David), Boris Johnson, fatherhood and why he'll never win an argument with his wife. Ed, thank you for coming on How To Fail with such a generous spirit and for engaging so brilliantly with the premise. You're a mensch. * Go Big: How To Fix The World by Ed Miliband is out now and available to order here. You can listen to Reasons To Be Cheerful, his excellent podcast, co-hosted with comedian Geoff Lloyd here. * My new novel, Magpie, is out on 2nd September. I'd love it if you felt like pre-ordering as it really helps authors! You can do that here. * How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email howtofailpod@gmail.com * Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabday How To Fail @howtofailpod Ed Miliband @ed_miliband Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/423293 to listen full audiobooks. Title: GO BIG: How To Fix Our World Author: Ed Miliband Narrator: Ed Miliband Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 58 minutes Release date: June 3, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Economics Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. ** INCLUDES BONUS CHAPTER: IN CONVERSATION WITH GEOFF LLOYD ** *A Guardian, Evening Standard and New Statesman Book to Look Out for in 2021* 'GO BIG should be the rallying cry of progressives around the world' Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind Good news: the solutions to our problems already exist. Great news: a once-in-a-generation appetite for change means we can make them happen. - How do we provide enough affordable housing for everyone? - How do we rein in the power of Big Tech? - How can we rebuild our broken politics? How do we tackle the climate crisis? - How do we really give people back control? For the past four years, Ed Miliband has been discovering and interviewing brilliant people all around the world who are successfully tackling these problems, transforming communities and pioneering global movements. From a citizens' assembly in Mongolia to the UK's largest walking and cycling network in Greater Manchester, from flexible working in Finland to the campaign for the first halal Nando's in Cardiff, Go Big draws on the most imaginative and ambitious of these ideas to provide a vision for how to remake society. The challenges we face are daunting, but in Go Big he shows that the scale of what is possible is far greater. We are at a rare moment in history when people everywhere see the need for big change. The future is not yet written. It's our job to write it. Go Big shows us how. 'Enthralling. I was left with such an unusual feeling that I didn't at first realise what it was, and then I remembered: optimism' PHILIP PULLMAN 'Inspired and inspiring, Miliband calls upon us to rise to our challenges with courageous boldness' CHRISTIANA FIGUERES, Lead Negotiator of the UN Paris Climate Agreement © Ed Miliband 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/423293 to listen full audiobooks. Title: GO BIG: How To Fix Our World Author: Ed Miliband Narrator: Ed Miliband Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 58 minutes Release date: June 3, 2021 Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1 Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1 Genres: Economics Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. ** INCLUDES BONUS CHAPTER: IN CONVERSATION WITH GEOFF LLOYD ** *A Guardian, Evening Standard and New Statesman Book to Look Out for in 2021* 'GO BIG should be the rallying cry of progressives around the world' Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind Good news: the solutions to our problems already exist. Great news: a once-in-a-generation appetite for change means we can make them happen. - How do we provide enough affordable housing for everyone? - How do we rein in the power of Big Tech? - How can we rebuild our broken politics? How do we tackle the climate crisis? - How do we really give people back control? For the past four years, Ed Miliband has been discovering and interviewing brilliant people all around the world who are successfully tackling these problems, transforming communities and pioneering global movements. From a citizens' assembly in Mongolia to the UK's largest walking and cycling network in Greater Manchester, from flexible working in Finland to the campaign for the first halal Nando's in Cardiff, Go Big draws on the most imaginative and ambitious of these ideas to provide a vision for how to remake society. The challenges we face are daunting, but in Go Big he shows that the scale of what is possible is far greater. We are at a rare moment in history when people everywhere see the need for big change. The future is not yet written. It's our job to write it. Go Big shows us how. 'Enthralling. I was left with such an unusual feeling that I didn't at first realise what it was, and then I remembered: optimism' PHILIP PULLMAN 'Inspired and inspiring, Miliband calls upon us to rise to our challenges with courageous boldness' CHRISTIANA FIGUERES, Lead Negotiator of the UN Paris Climate Agreement © Ed Miliband 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/2/audible/166783 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Go Big Author: Ed Miliband Narrator: Ed Miliband Format: mp3 Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins Release date: 06-03-21 Ratings: Not rated yet Genres: Future Studies Publisher's Summary: The challenges we face are daunting, but in Go Big, Ed Miliband shows that the scale of what is possible is far greater. We are at a rare moment in history when people everywhere see the need for big change. Meanwhile, practical and proven ways exist for tackling everything from inequality to the climate crisis - if you know where to look and have the courage to think big.

Though we often talk about the impending climate crisis, the truth is that the effects of climate change are already here. Ed Miliband joins us to talk about his radical green programme, his past work as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and why he thinks our climate crisis is tied to our economic crisis. You can read Ed Miliband’s cover story, "How to Save the Planet" here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/ed-miliband-climate-change-economy-save-planet Plus: Steve Bloomfield and Tom Clark offer a short history of our current climate change crisis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.