Miliband urged to end unpaid work

29 June 2011 Last updated at 13:55 GMT By Victoria King BBC News Ed Miliband has pledged to campaign for all interns to get the minimum wage Campaigners are calling on Ed Miliband to end unpaid internships within the Labour Party after one of his MPs was criticised for recruiting a volunteer.

Intern Aware have sent a letter to him signed by the heads of Young Labour and the National Union of Students.

They said it was hard for him to "talk about social mobility with a straight face" while the practice continued.

While running for Labour leader, Mr Miliband pledged to campaign for all interns to get the minimum wage.

On Tuesday, the BBC revealed that Labour MP for West Ham Lyn Brown is advertising for a "voluntary Westminster worker" to join her office and carry out duties including policy research and dealing with constituents.

According to her official website, she has "campaigned tirelessly for a living wage for all" since her election in 2005.

Intern Aware accused her of "hypocrisy", but she told the BBC that although she would like to pay all her staff, she lacked sufficient resources. She said the volunteer would get expenses.

Internship pledge

Labour said the recruitment of staff was a matter for individual MPs, but Intern Aware have written to Mr Miliband urging him to take a stand.

During the Labour leadership contest, he signed the group's pledge promising that if elected, he would campaign for the Minimum Wage Act to be fully enforced to cover interns.

He said he had not personally taken on any unpaid staff and had encouraged other colleagues within his party to do the same. He added that Labour would "look closely at this issue in our policy review".

Mr Miliband also attended the launch party for the Speaker's Parliamentary Placements scheme, which is being set up to offer paid internships with MPs to a small number of applicants from poorer backgrounds.

Ben Lyons, co-director of Intern Aware, said: "Ed Miliband likes to talk a lot about social mobility, but now it's time for him to put that into practice.

"He says he will be fighting the next election on increasing opportunities for young people, but he doesn't need to wait until then.

"He must keep his pledge and end unpaid internships in the Labour Party. As leader, it is clearly within his powers to give instructions to MPs in his own party, and it is damaging for our democracy if the only people starting careers in politics are those who can afford to work for free."

The open letter to Mr Miliband has been signed by Susan Nash, chair of Young Labour, and Liam Burns, head of the National Union of Students.

Another signatory is Louise Haigh, the Unite union representative for MPs' staff and interns in Parliament.

She said: "I want to see interns paid the living wage but at the absolute minimum, their entitlement under law - the National Minimum Wage.

"If people are workers they should receive the NMW or MPs open themselves up to being hauled through the courts.

"The party must take a strong line on this and force its MPs to pay their workers properly and clearly differentiate between workers and volunteers."

Mr Miliband's competitors for the Labour leadership, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and his brother David, all joined him in signing the Intern Aware pledge.

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Miliband stories 'hurting Labour'

12 June 2011 Last updated at 10:10 GMT Ed Miliband beat brother David to the Labour leadership by a narrow margin Headlines about an alleged feud between Ed and David Miliband are "damaging" Labour, Lord Falconer has said.

According to press reports the relationship between the two brothers is far worse than either has admitted.

Both men have dismissed the claims, made in a new book serialised by The Mail on Sunday, as "tittle tattle".

But Lord Falconer told BBC News they were "distracting" and "highly reminiscent" of disagreements between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

"It is trying to fit the present and the future into a template from the past. There is no doubt that Gordon and Tony got on incredibly badly," said the former Lord Chancellor.

"Everybody therefore wants that sort of rowing to continue and it's got the added spice of the fact that the two leading figures in the Labour Party are brothers. But that's not the way it is."

Leaked documents

The two brothers have both insisted their personal relations were not damaged by Ed's defeat of elder sibling David in last year's Labour leadership contest.

Continue reading the main story

This is soap opera speculation about history when the public want politicians to be focusing on the future”

End Quote David Miliband spokesman The pair were on different sides in the feud between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair during Labour's time in power - and have both acknowledged the damage that row did to the party and the need to avoid it happening again.

David has largely remained silent on policy issues since his defeat and avoided public criticism of Ed's performance as leader.

But the newspapers have been dominated in recent days by leaked documents, including the speech David planned to make if he had won the leadership, in what has been seen by some commentators as a concerted attempt by David's supporters to destabilise Ed's leadership.

Shadow health secretary Jon Healey denied reports of in-fighting between rival camps.

"There is very little of that, I have to tell you, either in Parliament or around the country," he told Sky News.

He said Labour was in a "unique position" for a party that had just lost an election as there was "a determination and a unity that we simply have not seen before".

A new unauthorised biography, Ed: The Milibands And The Making Of A Labour Leader, claims David Miliband can barely bring himself to speak to his brother, and the two men communicate mainly through officials.

David is also said to be scathing about Ed's performance in private, saying he is "heading in the wrong direction".

'Bad blood'

Ed, for his part, is said to regard his sibling as too "managerial and technocratic".

The book also claims there is "bad blood" between Ed and shadow chancellor Ed Balls, dating back to their time as advisers to Gordon Brown at the Treasury.

The biography, by Labour-supporting journalists Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre, questions Ed's claim he made a last-minute decision to stand and may have been plotting to eclipse David for years.

The book also claims Ed blames David's team for spreading his nicknames Red Ed and Forrest Gump and that the two brothers have clashed over how Ed broke the news he was planning to stand.

A spokesman for ex-foreign secretary David said: "This is soap opera speculation about history when the public want politicians to be focusing on the future."

A source close to the Labour leader said: "David and Ed talked before, during and after the leadership election.

"There is no problem. This is tittle tattle and the Labour Party will be concentrating on meeting the challenges of Britain's future, not looking back to the past."

Ed will try to regain the initiative on Monday, with a speech in which he will admit Labour got it wrong over the welfare state and banking regulation.

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'Lucky' Miliband marries partner Justine

27 May 2011 Last updated at 13:10 GMT Ed Miliband and his new wife Justine

Labour leader Ed Miliband has married long-term partner Justine Thornton in a private ceremony in Nottinghamshire.

The civil ceremony took place in a luxury hotel attended by about 50 guests, including his brother David.

Mr Miliband met Ms Thornton, an environmental lawyer, in 2005 and they were engaged in March.

Before the wedding, Mr Miliband said he felt like "the luckiest guy in the world" and he was "really looking forward" to the nuptials.

'Great day'

After tying the knot in the Langar Hall country hotel near Nottingham, at a ceremony attended by family members and friends, the couple posted for pictures outside the venue.

Ms Thornton wore an ivory, empire line dress designed by Temperley while Mr Miliband wore a slate grey suit from Aquascutum.

The 25-minute ceremony included readings from Louis de Bernieres' best-selling novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin and I Carry Your Heart With Me, a poem by the American writer EE Cummings and a variety of music.

The couple used traditional wedding vows although they omitted the promise to "obey".

Following the ceremony Mr Miliband's brother, former foreign secretary David Miliband, wrote on Twitter: "Great day for Ed and Justine. They look very happy - congratulations from all the Milibands."

The Labour leader, 41, has broken with the tradition of having a best man and both he and Ms Thornton are giving speeches at the reception.

Instead of buying presents, they suggested guests give donations to children's charity Barnardo's and to Methodist Homes for the Aged.

'Right time'

Mr Miliband had faced questions about his status as an unmarried father after becoming opposition leader last September.

He told interviewers marriage was "a very important institution" but asked whether he felt it would be important, were he to become prime minister, he said he felt people were "pretty relaxed" about the issue.

But it emerged in March he had proposed last year and he told his local paper it was the "right time" for the couple to tie the knot.

Ahead of the ceremony on Friday, Mr Miliband wrote on the micro-blogging site Twitter: "Thanks for all the good wishes. Really looking forward to the day. Feel like the luckiest guy in the world to be marrying Justine."

The couple are due to take a five-day honeymoon in an undisclosed location.

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