Deserving of Charity

As we little people worry about those little problems that affect our petty little lives, such as whether we'll have a job next year and if so, whether it will be paid, let us spare a sympathetic thought for the Lower (formerly Upper) Miliband, who is doing his best to cope with a brutal California winter while agonising about his next career move. It has been suggested that, given his attitude to kidnapping and torture as carried out by the United States, the Lower (formerly Upper) Miliband would make a good US ambassador, although the Lower (formerly Upper) Miliband is apparently wary of the idea, "partly because he is not clear it is a job with real power, rather than a message carrier from the British government to the US". Little people, spare him a thought as you make your own difficult choices between telemarketing and burger-flipping.

The Lower (formerly Upper) Miliband is a "passionate supporter of engaged internationalism", which may possibly mean something, and he did have a chance at being the chief foreign policy representative for the EU; but, international responsibility being more important than partisan politics, he refused the job in order to concentrate on "making Labour electable", in the hope that a new Brown administration would lead inevitably to a Downing Street coup that even a Miliband couldn't cock up and the enthronement of himself as Prime Minister. Unemployed little people, spare him a thought as you make your own difficult choices between heating and eating.

"Another option," suggests Britain's leading liberal newspaper cruelly, "is working in academia, following his father", primogeniture now being the thing for a university post; "but possibly in the US", where the transition of academia from educational enterprise to business plan is presumably more advanced than it is here. Teenage rioters, spare him a thought.

As he agrees with the Government on most things, the Lower (formerly Upper) Miliband has more or less given up on Parliament since the Labour part of it failed to ratify his entitlement to the leadership, although he makes occasional appearances in the Commons over departmental matters and has also condescended to give evidence to the foreign affairs select committee. His constituents in South Shields evidently know better than to bother him. Little people, as you make ready for a life of bliss seeking employment while running your own public services, spare him a thought.