David Miliband being considered for senior job in Burnham cabinet

David Miliband is ready to serve in Andy Burnham’s government if he is offered a cabinet job.

The Observer understands that Burnham is actively considering appointing Miliband to a senior post in his administration. One option would be to make him foreign secretary, with a seat in the House of Lords, a model used by Rishi Sunak to bring in David Cameron.

Burnham, who is expected to become prime minister in two weeks, is being urged to appoint Miliband by senior allies who believe he must draw on all the talents of the Labour party for his government to succeed.

Although no decision has been made, Burnham is keen to have a foreign secretary with international stature so that he can spend less time travelling abroad than Keir Starmer.

Miliband, who was foreign secretary under Gordon Brown, is experienced and well-connected. He is also respected by Jonathan Powell, who has agreed to stay on as Burnham’s national security adviser, and is close to the former cabinet minister James Purnell, who will be Downing Street chief of staff.

Last week Miliband told a thinktank event in London that he was “optimistic” about the prospect of a Burnham premiership. He said the MP for Makerfield has “this openness and energy that I think is very attractive and positive”. Burnham, Purnell and Miliband all joined the House of Commons for the first time in 2001.

Miliband quit as MP for South Shields in 2013 to take up the post of president of the International Rescue Committee, based in New York, but he is now keen to return to the frontline of British politics.

In a recent BBC interview he described the UK as his homeland and said Labour needed to confront the big policy questions rather than just focusing on personalities.

“Britain is in the eye of a global storm,” he said. “The global order is being ripped up, our economy is being transformed by new technology, our welfare system needs to shift from a focus on older people to an investment in younger people … we’ve got massive debates to have in this country about how we spur wealth creation, distribute it fairly and reinvent the way in which government works.”

If Burnham does appoint David Miliband to the cabinet he would be sitting around the table with his brother Ed, the current energy secretary who beat him to the Labour leadership in 2010.

Some around Burnham fear the return of a “psychodrama” between the Miliband brothers. But others argue that the more centrist David would balance the soft left instincts of Ed and might make it easier to appoint the younger brother as chancellor. A spokesman for Burnham said no jobs had been offered.

The Observer revealed on Friday that Powell had been persuaded to stay on as national security adviser. The former chief of staff to Tony Blair had been planning to leave Number 10 in the autumn if Starmer remained as prime minister but he has now agreed to continue in post.

The decision is a major coup for Burnham. Powell is credited with playing a key role in shaping Starmer’s policies on the international stage and is widely respected around the world. “He is indefatigable, driven, and has contacts in all corners like nobody else,” one source said.

His sense of duty made him conclude that it was in the national interest to maintain stability at a time of domestic and international turmoil, one ally said. “[It’s] in the blood.” Powell’s father was in the Royal Air Force and his brother Charles was private secretary to Margaret Thatcher.

Powell, a former diplomat who served as chief of staff for a decade between 1997 and 2007, was the chief British negotiator in the Northern Ireland peace process which led to the Good Friday Agreement. Under Starmer, he was heavily involved in striking a deal over the Chagos Islands and in February he attended talks in Geneva between the US and Iran.

He advised the prime minister not to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. Documents released by the government revealed that Powell found the appointment process “weirdly rushed”. In a record of a call on 12 September 2025, the day after Mandelson was sacked, he is noted as having raised concerns “about the individual and reputation” to Morgan McSweeney, who was then Starmer’s chief of staff.

Allies of Burnham say he intends to focus more on domestic policy than foreign affairs. One described international relations as a “team effort” that is “not the sole responsibility of the prime minister”.

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