Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be questioned by the official inquiry into the war in Iraq, but not until after the General Election, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The plan to summon Brown to give evidence was revealed in a statement from the inquiry team working for Sir John Chilcot. The statement listed witnesses who will be called to give evidence to the inquiry next year, who include former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his former spokesman …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that Allied troops must stay in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban filling any “vacuum”, and that Britain would be ready to send more troops as part of an agreed strategy, ITN reports.
“I, as much as anyone else, want to bring our troops back home to safety, but we cannot leave a vacuum which the Taliban will quickly fill, and under their umbrella, al-Qaeda quickly follow,” Miliband said. “Counter-terrorism may deal …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband publicly ruled himself out of the race to become foreign minister of the European Union yesterday and threw his support behind Tony Blair’s flagging campaign to become EU’s first president, The Times reports.
With one eye apparently on a future tilt at the Labour leadership, Miliband committed his future to Britain, saying that he wanted to “stay and fight” the general election, and he described Blair as an “excellent candidate” for Europe’s …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband rejected the chance to become European Union’s foreign minister, the BBC reports.
Miliband told the head of the European socialists’ group he was not interested in the job, and friends have indicated that he “sees his future in British politics”.
BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson said Miliband had rejected the lure of high office in Brussels for the uncertainty of life in a Labour…

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has accepted the European foreign policy minister role he was tipped for, a Labour source told politics.co.uk.
Miliband could announce his new position within the next fortnight, triggering a by-election in his South Shields constituency seat which might be contested by Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who could even take over leadership of the party after what is widely anticipated to be a dire election result for Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Labour.
Now the …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband promised in Moscow that Britain will work with Russia but insisted the countries would not “paper over” their differences, ITN reports.
Miliband, who is the first British Foreign Secretary to visit Moscow since Jack Straw in 2004, welcomed increasing “common ground” between the two countries.
“The cultural and business links that are growing, I think, are testimony to the importance of the UK-Russia relationship,” he said. “That is reflected now at governmental level – not …

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today that changing the country’s constitution to extradite the murderer of former spy and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi, is “absolutely unrealistic”, AFP reports.
“Our position has not changed,” Lavrov said after his meeting with Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband. “I believe our British colleagues understand that demands to change our constitution are absolutely unrealistic.”
British police accuse Lugovoi of murdering former Russian spy turned exiled Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko by …

Russia has launched a withering attack on Britain’s foreign policy on the eve of the first visit to Moscow by a British Foreign Secretary in more than five years, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Russian ambassador to London, Yuri Fedotov, hit out as Foreign Secretary David Miliband was due to arrive in the country on Sunday for what is expected to be a tense trip.
Fedotov criticised Britain for adopting “anti-Russian measures” and he said that there was …

Conservative leader David Cameron demanded that Foreign Secretary David Miliband retract his recent attacks on the Conservatives’ European allies who he accuses of being anti-Semitic, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The row over Michal Kaminski, the MEP who leads the Tories’ new grouping in the European Parliament, began a month ago when Miliband used his speech to Labour Conference to accuse the Pole of having an “anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi past”.
During weeks of increasingly angry exchanges, Miliband has repeatedly …

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan says that Foreign Secretary David Miliband should apologise to the people of Poland and Latvia, after trying to brand the Latvian and Polish members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) antisemites.
Hannan writes in his blog that in pursuit of his campaign to be the EU’s first foreign minister, Miliband seems quite happy to prejudice Britain’s bilateral relations with friendly countries.
“His increasingly unhinged allegations have been greeted with horror in …

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has become a surprise contender for the new post of EU foreign minister as an anti-Blair bandwagon gathers pace, The Times reports.
While the possibility of ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair becoming the new president of European Union has dominated debate in Britain, a growing number of EU capitals have been quietly focusing on the merits of Miliband.
No one in Europe believes that both of the prestigious new posts created in the …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband is being lined up to become the European Union’s first Foreign Minister as a “plan B”, should former Prime Minister Tony Blair be blocked from becoming the union’s president, the Daily Telegraph reports.
With resistance growing in some countries to Blair, diplomats have been suggesting alternatives to boost Britain’s standing in the reshaped EU. One “hypothetical” suggestion gaining ground in Brussels links Miliband to the job of High Representative for the Common Foreign …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has admitted that the elections in Afghanistan were flawed and warned that Britain would not tolerate a “whitewash” in the results, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Miliband pointedly avoided describing last month’s vote as “free and fair” and said that it could not be held up as a “shining example” of democracy at work.
His remarks come after the Tories took a more critical stance on Afghanistan, calling for a rerun of the poll …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband today confirmed the Government did not want the Lockerbie terrorist to die in jail as Prime Minister Gordon Brown faced fresh questions about the convicted terrorist’s release, the Daily Mail reports.
Miliband backed up an account of a meeting with Libya by a British minister, revealed in official documents published yesterday in a bid to dispel the row over Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s release.
The documents said Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell had …

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was “distressed” at the Libyan celebrations over Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi’s release but denied British involvement, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Miliband said it was purely “a matter for the Scottish government”. He rejected as a “slur” the suggestion that the Government had wanted al-Megrahi to be released so that commercial relations with Libya could be improved.
“I really reject that entirely; that is a slur both on myself and the …

Foreign Secretary David Miliband proposed today that the Allies should change strategy in Afghanistan to include talks with elements of the Taliban, the Times reports.
In a speech at NATO headquarters Miliband said that while it was vital to keep pressing forward with the military campaign that has started to take the battle to the insurgents, it would also be prudent to start a Northern Ireland-style dialogue with the enemy.
Miliband urged NATO members to support the …