How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S11, Ep3 How to Fail: Ed Miliband

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

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 [e-mail]*Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Ed Miliband @ed_miliband   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. This episode of How to Fail is sponsored by Misoma, my go-to jewelry brand. Now, I was introduced to Misoma by a very, very close friend of mine, and I have barely gone a day without wearing a piece of their jewelry since. They really are amazing. And Miss Soma know that every piece of jewellery a woman wears tells a part of her story, her successes, her celebrations, and of course, her failures. The earrings she bought with her first paycheck, the surprise pick-me-up present from her best friend after that rubbish

breakup, the matching bracelets they got on that wild holiday, refusing to take them off for months. As we grow, so too does our armour. From past loves to career milestones, morning to night, we wear our treasured moments, knowing they have shaped the person we have become. Misoma are on a mission to build a more confident, creative, and collaborative world, starting a chain reaction, one link at a time. I'm thrilled to share to all listeners of How to Fail a very exclusive 15% off now when you use ElizabethDay15 on Misoma.com. Thank you very much to Miss Soma. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right.

This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. My guest today is a man of myriad talents and tastes. He can complete a Rubik's Cube with one hand in 90 seconds. He's an expert player of the 80s computer game Manic Miner. He is a fan of the long-running US soap Dallas and A-Ha's Take On Me is one of his most played songs. A self-proclaimed geek, he once told me, without hesitation, that his favourite animal was a penguin. He is also a politician and quite a notable one at that. He has served as MP for Doncaster North

since 2005 and is currently the Shadow Business Secretary. In 2010, he was elected leader of the Labour Party. His rivals included his own brother. He is, of course, Ed Miliband. Left-wing politics is perhaps in his blood. His father, Ralph, fled the Nazi invasion of Belgium in 1940 and became one of the leading Marxist theorists of his generation. His mother, Marianne, survived the Holocaust by being shielded in a Polish convent and became a human rights campaigner and early CND activist. Guests around the dinner table when Ed was growing up included Tony Benn and the prominent British historian Robin Blackburn. He was encouraged from an early age to express his own opinions. But after a general election

defeat for Labour in 2015, Miliband resigned as leader and forged a highly successful second career as a podcaster. Reasons to be Cheerful, which he hosts with comedian Geoff Lloyd, explores the ideas, people and movements solving the biggest challenges facing society today. It is an unapologetically optimistic show and has now inspired Miliband's first book, Go Big, How to Fix Our World. The book comes garlanded with praise from the likes of Philip Pullman and the Prime Minister of Iceland, and it covers everything from climate change, of Iceland, and it covers everything from climate change, community activism, and Wallace from Wallace and Gromit, who Miliband has been told he resembles.

It's a comparison he claims not to mind too much. He is kind-hearted, friendly, funny, and a lover of cheese, Miliband writes. What's not to admire? Ed Miliband, welcome to How to Fail. Well, thank you very much, Elizabeth. I feel that introduction is far too complimentary. I think you've only done the best bits. I want to thank you, first of all, for being so nice. Oh, well, I'm just soft-soaping you before the hard, perhaps menace questions. Exactly. Can you still complete a Rubik's Cube with 100 questions? No. It was sort of in the 80s when I was growing up teenager, I got very into the Rubik's Cube and I became quite expert. But I fear it's obviously not like

riding a bike. I only recently properly learned to ride a bike, but you can forget how to do the Rubik's Cube, I'm afraid. I know I did enjoy that bit in your book, which I enjoyed as a whole, actually, Go Big. And I love the cover too. But there's a bit in the book where you say that you've always been a bit of a sort of unbalanced cyclist because you only learned when you were 12 and there was a point during lockdown where you thought of taking up an adult tricycle but you were put off by the idea of the photographs that might appear in the press. My wife who is very persuasive persuaded me to go and trial one and was sort of encouraging but I I just couldn't quite see it. So much to her amazement, I've sort of become a, I wouldn't say confident cyclist, but a sort of not a wholly

dangerous cyclist. Anyway, put it that way. What is your favourite cheese, by the way? It's probably cheddar, actually. Yeah, that tracks. I don't know what Wallace's favourite cheese is, actually. I should check. It's Wensleydale. Ah, yes. There's a seminal difference cheeses, actually. I should check. It's Wensleydale. Ah, yes. There's a seminal difference. Yes, exactly. But other than that, the similarity that you have with Wallace and what is very apparent in Go Big is that you are a really positive person. And it's very refreshing to read that kind of optimism.

Have you always been like that? is to be a believer that the world can get better. It's a kind of almost requirement to be in it, that you've got to think things can change and things can change for the better. And the truth is that since I lost the election in 2015, I've had a chance to sort of look at ideas from around the world. And that's what the book tries to do, to show how there are great ideas around the world and things can change. And I suppose maybe it's also that something very much instilled by my parents, which is, I think they taught me to kind of care about the world and think things could be better. And you referred in your introduction to the people we had around the dinner table, some incredible people. And I think of the South

African activists, Joe Slovo and Ruth First. Ruth First was killed in the end by the South African secret police. It was a letter bomb. But I met her before she died and they fought for the end of apartheid. She didn't live to see it. Joe Slovo did. And things changed. And when I met them, people couldn't really see apartheid ending. So I think it's sort of partly upbringing, yeah. There is this quote in the book, you write that for all the obstacles we face, the actual limits to what is possible are set only by our imagination, which is, again, just a beautiful sentence and a beautiful idea. I want to talk about a couple of the ideas that you explore in the book that really spoke to me. But I wonder if you feel that British politics is too hemmed in by its own systems to think big. It just feels overwhelming to try and affect big change. And I suppose I wonder if you can be too optimistic for British politics. Possibly. When I look back on my time as leader, I think I wasn't optimistic enough,

and I wasn't bold enough, and I was too cautious. You know, I stood because I felt the Labour Party needed to move on from New Labour. But if I have one regret, it's I wish I was bolder. And I suppose part of the point of the book is to try and, if it doesn't sound too pompous, raise the level of our ambition and to say, and I think this is partly what has happened in politics. If you think about the post-war Labour government, they built the NHS, they built the modern welfare state, and we had a sense of agency in politics that big things could happen and big things could change. And also, Mrs Thatcher wasn't my politics, obviously, but she also had brought about profound change. There are

definitely limits and there are definitely reasons why it's hard. First of all, we made our institutions and we can remake them, as I say in the book. And secondly, when we look at the challenges we face, the challenge of climate change, the challenge of inequality, the challenge of recovering from COVID, I think we've got to think big. And that's, I suppose, the case that I'm making, but it is hard. You talk about something that happened in Finland, where they admitted, the government sort of admitted that they had made mistakes and that their approach to policymaking was going to be humble. And you write that it's hard to imagine a British government adopting this stance. Imagine the opening line of the Queen's speech, my government will be humble in its approach to

policymaking, experiment and learn from its mistakes. And that so tallies with everything that this podcast is about, the value of learning from our mistakes and our failures. Why do British politicians find that so hard? I think it's partly the culture, the media, what is expected. And I try and talk about this in the book. And in a way, it was one of the hardest but most exciting chapters to write because people on the left are very good at saying what's the problem with the market, if you like, but less good about saying what the state or government can get wrong. And governments get things wrong all the time and have to go back and revise what they do. And what attracted me about this Finnish idea

of humble government was to say, well, actually, that's almost inherent in the nature of government. And you can't just design something in our case in Whitehall and think it's going to work. It's got to use the experience of local people on the ground, use the experience of practice, change in response to that. And I think it's so important this because it's what governments do in practice all the time, but they just don't want to admit it. Do you think, I mean, we've got another old Etonian Prime Minister. Are we Brits just obsessed with class? Why do people vote for Boris Johnson? I think because he has captured the idea of being optimistic and being for big things. His slogan in 2019, get Brexit done, the slogan of the 2016 referendum campaign,

take back control, were speaking to big thoughts. And in a way, I think that's what I learn in politics. I think we're in an era, we've been through the financial crisis of 2007-8. We've been through Brexit, which was a great sort of political crisis. And Tumart obviously changed our status in the world. And now we've been through COVID, which has revealed deep, deep problems in the way our country is run from the pay of key workers to public services. And people don't think things are like going great. They think there needs to be big change. Now, different people have different

views about what that change looks like. But I think the thing that Boris Johnson has managed to do, and whether he delivers this is a whole other question, is speak to people's sense that there are deep problems and they need sorting out. And I think in the end, that plus him saying he can be optimistic about the country, I think there are two reasons why he has appeal. And do you think we still believe that someone who's gone to Eton and Oxford knows what's best for us? Do you think there's still that kind of ingrained element in British society? I'm not sure it's because he's gone to Eton and Oxford that people are voting for him. I think people sort of ignore that, you know. I mean, I was opposite David

Cameron for four and a half years. And I do think there's something about Eton, obviously didn't go to Eton, I went to Haverstock Comprehensive, but which gives you a confidence, and not to say an arrogance in their cases, which is probably can quite help you. Their sort of ability to laugh things off and shake things off is quite a skill, if you know what I mean. Just not to be bothered. Yeah, I do know what you mean. I once judged a short story competition for Students Have Eaten. And I sort of did it because I wanted to see what it was like. And I got invited to this dinner. And it was extraordinary because I was sitting next to 17 year olds

who were deeply charming, knew the rules of how to socialise, had been taught that gloss of how to make conversation and how to be charismatic. And I was like, wow, this was not me at 17. Do you think it's in the water? Potentially.

Let's get down to Windsor and start drinking from the taps. I don't know. I mean, look, there's definitely something, you know, look, in the case of Cameron, I don't want to be too personal, but I mean, you know, you can see its upsides and you can see its downsides. I mean, there's a certain arrogance, but I think it probably helps.

It probably means that there's less of a sense of self-doubt. Yeah. I would like to know just before I get on to your excellent failures and I want to have enough time to discuss them each whether you're a workaholic because you talk about the case for shared parental leave in the book and you make the point that you only got two weeks off as leader of the Labour Party after the birth of your second child, Sam. And throughout the book, you kind of make reference to the fact that you have been away possibly more than you would like from the family dynamic. And I wonder if you feel guilt about that.

I definitely do. I feel a lot of guilt about it. When I was leader of the Labour Party, I was present. But even when I was present, I was absent. We were walking along the street with Sam, who's now 10, and a woman passed me by and said to me, I really wish you were Prime Minister, mate, which doesn't happen every day, but it does happen every so often. And I then had a chat with Sam about it. He was too young, really, to know what was going on when I was leader. We both concluded that it was much better for him that I'd lost the election. I think it's a very exciting idea, this idea of father's leave, what they call use it or lose it

father's leave. So in other words, it's leave assigned to the father, not transferable leave, which I think can totally change the kind of expectation, the gender roles, what work looks like, whether family comes first, all of those things. But I think definitely in my case, I do feel a sense of guilt about it. Your wife, Justine Thornton, is a high court judge. Do you ever win an argument against her? No, I always lose. As my career has sort of nosedived after 2015, her career has sort of taken off. And I suspect the two are probably somewhat related in the sense that I was probably holding her back. So in sort of quick succession after I lost, she's become a QC, a deputy high court judge, and now a high court judge. So I think that sort of tells you something about the burden she was

under while I was leader. And I underestimated it before I went into it, and I underestimated it at the time. And being a political spouse is absolutely awful, I think. And I'm sure we could have handled it better. It's not like she was doing that much with me, but she should have been more private, and we should have respected that more. I think since then, both Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, in particular, in the way that their spouses were sort of kept out of the limelight, did it better. Yeah, it was a very peculiar time now, looking back. And I know it's not that long ago. But that idea that a political wife, because it was predominantly wives, would be wheeled out,

and they had to be wearing appropriate gear, as deemed by the Daily Mail. Their clothes and their haircut would be examined and their interactions. And it just, if you've never asked for it, that's kind of a pressured place to be. I mean, that is completely true. I kind of underestimated the strain on her, because I think it's just so difficult. Being leader of the Labour Party, being leader of the opposition is not a barrel of laughs we might come on to. And to say it has its ups and downs, in my case, more downs than ups. And all she could do was sort of watch and try and be supportive and be supportive. But I think it's incredibly difficult and painful. I mean, we will come on to that because it relates to one of your failures.

But you do say in the book that it felt like after you resigned from leader of the Labour Party, people were flabbergasted to discover that you had a personality. And it's so true. But it's so true but it's like anyone who meets you will say what a personable funny easy to talk to person you are and it must be very difficult as someone as your wife to see that being so misinterpreted as it seemed to be anyway we will get on to that we will get on to that but let's talk about your failures your first you say, is your failure to get a first at university. So the university is Oxford, so bring out your tiny violins. But tell us why this has stuck with you as a failure. I think it's interesting, really, because at sort of a number of different levels, I'm quite an anxious person. And I think,

I know it sounds a bit weird, but I think I've only understood this properly in the last few years, probably since 2015. I think that sort of anxiety is something I've struggled with all my life. And the sort of first real bout of it, or the first time it really struck home was in the run up to my exams at university. It was sort of three or four months or maybe a bit more of sort of preparing for exams. And I just put an incredible amount of pressure on myself to get a first. I did politics, philosophy and economics, PPE. The failure to get the first, the reason I cite it is one, because I think the anxiety thing is just a big deal.

My dad used to say to me, it's not your state of knowledge, it's your state of mind that I'm worried about. I talked to him a lot during the run up to that period. And, you know, it's a hothouse atmosphere. And as I think back on it, and this does relate to my kids, I think, I'd sort of done incredibly well, like I'd got eight A's at O level as it then was. A CSE grade two in drama however just for the record that's I don't seem like a very good actor anyway I'd done pretty well in my A levels and I

got into Oxford I'd like been a young reviewer on LBC when I was like 13 14 so I'd been a sort of overachieving child at no time did my parents say, we love you because of your achievements. But they did probably convince me that I was exceptionally able and so on. And therefore, I think I just put incredible pressure on myself. And I was really fearful about failing. So that is part of it. And as I think about my own kids, I think, and I've sort of read quite a lot about this, about how to bring up kids in a way that doesn't put that pressure on to them is to sort of when they do well to say well it's brilliant that you've done well but we love you equally whether you do well or not do you know what I mean because otherwise the pressure becomes it becomes a sort

of vicious circle where I completely relate to this, where I felt that no one made me feel like this, but I felt like approval and love was conditional on my doing well at school. And then when you do well at school and you get approval for that, then you want to keep on doing it. And I also had what would now be described as anxiety during my A-levels. At the time, the language was that of like, I was just a worrier and I worried a lot. And it's interesting to me that you say you've just realised since 2015 that actually for you it was anxiety, because I feel like we have the language now to express that a bit more. But how did your anxiety manifest itself at that time? Just being deeply, deeply worried,

working too much, probably, on the exams, constantly saying to my dad in particular, you know, oh, God, I don't know enough. I don't know enough. What about this? What about that? I mean, if I'm honest, I don't remember it that well, but just feeling incredible stress. I always remember my mum actually told me this, that as my dad and mum dropped me off just before my finals, because I went home, I remember him walking down the stairs and saying to mum, I hate what this place has done to my son. He got them very worried that somebody might have heard him say that. And I remember my mum saying this to me. But it wasn't this place, I don't think. I think it came from sort of me. And look, I think there is a general tendency to say, oh, a bit of a warrior. Like it's a thing that people have in equal measure. And I

suppose everybody has anxiety in some ways. But unless you really experience it, I think it can be just dismissed, if you know what I mean yes I totally agree I just remember mainlining back rescue remedy that like herbal remedy that's meant to make you feel calm because I was just on a on a very high vibration of stress during my a-levels and partly for me and I wonder if it's the same for you is that I'm the younger sibling of two girls and I felt a great deal of family pressure because I come from a family of high achievers and I noticed that you went to the same Oxford college as your older brother who did get a first in the same subject so how did that like that must have been I mean look it must have been in

the background it's not really what I thought at the time at least consciously but of course it must have been there but you know what's a really interesting thing the reason I mentioned this also is that I then didn't get a first that's obviously obvious and then what was so interesting to me and particularly to my dad, was that I then didn't seem bothered about it. I know that sounds very bizarre. But when I did the phone call to find out whether I got one, and I hadn't, and I didn't think I had, by the way, because I didn't do brilliant, I felt I hadn't done brilliantly in the exams. I was like, oh, well. And then I got a place to do political theory at Cambridge, and I didn't get the place.

And then I went off and found a job in the media. And he was sort of amazed. He was like, well, you know, you went through six months of hell getting yourself into a complete state and now you don't seem that bothered. And I suppose that's a resilience thing. And maybe one of the characteristics of anxiety can be that somehow the expectation can be worse than the reality. I mean, to say I shrugged it off is maybe an overstatement, but not complete overstatement. that somehow the expectation can be worse than the reality. Yes.

I mean, to say I shrugged it off is maybe an overstatement, but not complete overstatement. I just sort of carried on and thought, well, nothing I can do now. You know, let's just find something else to do. Yeah, that's so true. It's almost like the game's over now. So I'm not, I don't have any skin in the game anymore.

And so I just have to sort of get on with it. And you're anxious in the limbo period while you're waiting. So what did you get in the end? Did you get a 2-1? A 2-1 and up a second, yeah. I mean, it's not a massive failure, but I understand completely that it went very deep for you. And it sounds like your father in particular was incredibly supportive through this. Did anyone make you feel bad for not having got first? No, not at all, really. I can't remember whether my father ever, I think he must have said to me, look, it doesn't matter whether you get a first or not, I don't care. But it was like it was so ingrained. Well, maybe I'm quite competitive. I know this is a digression,

but I know you've had Alastair Campbell on the podcast before. And during lockdown, but I know you've had Alastair Campbell on the podcast before and during lockdown it was certainly yeah during lockdown I took up cold water swimming and I went into the ponds near where I live in London having taken it up I'd sort of done it slightly to excess since I was in there in sort of four or five degrees or maybe a bit more for 20 minutes and then Alastair came Alastair is incredibly competitive and so the lifeguard said to him well Ed Miliband did 20 minutes and then I found out that Alastair had only done 12 and so then Alistair decided that he had to go and do 22 minutes in the Lido so I mean so we then had this exchange where I said well I knew you were incredibly competitive because he's always talking about winners and all of that

but then I thought well oh I came out maybe I'm obviously quite competitive because I was thinking well I've got to do, I didn't ever then do 25 minutes, but somebody advised me that at that temperature, it's probably not very advisable. But anyway, there we are. So that's hilarious. But also the connected tissue here is, I think, a need to prove yourself in some way, prove yourself potentially as a younger sibling. But also, I wonder if I can ask you quite a deep question which is about your family history because you must have been only too aware of the trauma and the horror that your parents were able to escape from through their force of will and immense strength of character do you think that you felt a responsibility

to do the best you could do, to be the best that you could be because of that? It's a really interesting question. I think it's in the background. I think it's definitely there. And they didn't ever talk about the Holocaust and their experiences. And my dad fled to Britain at the age of 16, just before the Nazis arrived in Brussels. And my dad fled to Britain at the age of 16, just before the Nazis arrived in Brussels, and my mum was in hiding during the Second World War and lost her father. But it did drive in them a kind of, you'd call it recognisably a sort of religious view, but obviously not religious, but sort of a secular view that, you know, you've got a duty to leave the world a better place than you found it. Because they lost people and lost relatives and family,

a sense of duty, I suppose, and sort of responsibility to the world. And maybe that weighs a bit heavily, to be honest. And maybe that did weigh a bit too heavily. I always thought it was a brilliant thing about my upbringing, because they were quite happy if I was sort of at the age of 11 or 12, around the dinner table arguing the toss with some famous person. upbringing, because they were quite happy if I was sort of at the age of 11 or 12, you know, around the dinner table arguing the toss with some famous person. And they were encouraging when the famous person would say, or the person who, you know, was some exalted person would say, you wouldn't understand my dad say, well, don't say that, you know, just because he's 12,

it doesn't mean he can't understand. It's a hard thing this because it's like, I want to make my kids interested in the world or not make I want them to be interested in the world. But I want them to be kids too. And again, it's so hard this, as I say this, I think, well, am I doing down my parents? I don't mean to do down my parents, because I think they gave me great things. And they would do childlike things with me. But there was quite a lot of sense of responsibility to the world, I think, in that upbringing. I mean, I think that that's actually, you're paying tribute to your parents there as well. I think there's probably no way one can escape that. The fact that it's a generation removed is so constantly horrifying. And I think, you know, I'm very interested in epigenetics and the idea that trauma can be inherited, can change your sort of physical self and I do think there's a lot to that and

it explains to me why you've written a book that is called Go Big and it is about changing the world for the better and that makes a beautiful kind of sense so I actually think you're paying tribute to your parents there. And in a way it takes us to my second failure doesn't it? Yes thank you for doing the link for me. From one podcaster to another. I know. It's just, this is seamless. Yeah. Your second failure. Oh, it's just so movingly expressed is your failure to keep your dad alive. Tell us about that, Ed. I mean, it's really difficult to talk about this. So the starting point is he was an older father. So he was 46 when I was born. And I always remember in the school playground, you know, like, how old's your dad? And it'd be like, sort of 29. How old's your dad? 50. And so I was always conscious of

having an older father, he was 11 years older than my mum. And I remember when I was 18, I met somebody else who had an older parent and he said something which really struck with me which is when you have an older parent you don't feel rebellious you feel sad and so my dad had this heart attack when I was three in 1973 and I don't remember that but what then happened was that we were living in Leeds at the time and this is sort of relevant and he used to go for check-ups and it was quite a serious heart attack but he was okay but and he used to go for check-ups and then his consultant retired and I remember this happened in the sort of 1980s and I remember then knowing this and sort of nagging him quite a lot to go and he kept saying

oh I must find somebody else to go and see to have my checkups and nagging him a lot, a lot. And it never quite sort of happened. And then in 1991, he felt something was slightly wrong and he went for a checkup and they said, well, look, you've got very serious blocked arteries. You're going to have to have a triple bypass. And he had this triple bypass and it didn't kill him, but it was very, very problematic problematic and he was in intensive care for four weeks at least four weeks and nearly died then and he died three years later and he sort of came home and he actually managed to write a book in that window between 1991 and 1994 this was actually coincided quite a lot with this time I was talking about when I was doing my finals I mean I was quite at home quite a lot, I was quite at home quite a lot.

And then I was at home quite a lot in the period after university when he was, I was at home a lot when he was recovering from the hospital experience, then home quite a lot later on. He just never quite was fully back to normal. And then he went into hospital and died over a few agonizing weeks. Now, I don't feel responsible for his death, obviously. I feel it's the worst thing that's happened in my life, and it was a terrible loss. Why do I even list it as a failure? I think partly because it was such a seminal moment in my, an awful moment in my life. It's hard, this Elizabeth, because at one level, it's absurd to think that I'm responsible for him having died. Obviously I'm not.

But at some emotional level I feel like well I was the one nagging him to go to do the checkup. And it was yeah it's just. Oh Ed I mean I'm so sorry first of all for that loss because I know you were young. You must have been around 25. Yeah 24 yeah. Yeah. And it sort of ties in, I suppose, to what we were talking about earlier, your level of anxiety, a sense of responsibility that you carry. But I wonder, do you feel that you had had all the conversations that you needed to have with your dad? Or do you feel that that was

just cut off and there were things that you still want to say to him? I think it's just incredibly difficult. It's like one of the characteristics of anxiety, I think, is that you think catastrophic things are going to happen. And the problem was that that was a sort of confirmation that catastrophic things do happen. And what was really difficult for us was that when he went into hospital for the last time, for these last few weeks, it wasn't like they said straight away, right, he's going to die. It was like, well, he's going to be OK. He's going to be OK.

Yeah, it's not great, but it's going to be OK. And then suddenly he wasn't OK. And I remember going to see the consultant after he died. I mean, I mean, absurdly, I wrote a sort of long letter saying, here are all the times we were told he was going to be okay. And he wasn't as if that was going to make any, and I'm not saying the hospital was negligent or anything. It's just one of those things, you know. So you felt deeply unprepared?

Yeah, I don't know whether you can ever be prepared, but you know, he was only 70. I don't think you can ever be prepared for that. It's like nearly 30 years ago. So it sort of seems like I've lived more than half my life without him. But that is just a terrible loss. I mean, it's just a terrible loss. And we had this thing during my childhood, which I sort of understand the reasons for it. But we lived in America together at the age when I was seven.

And he was teaching there for a year. And then he never really found an academic job in Britain that was quite right after that. And so he would then go off to America for three months on his own, which was horrendous. Not great for him, bad for him and not great for us. The great thing was when he was around, which was the rest of the year he was around because he just did that job

and then was back at home writing. That absence was very difficult too and so I don't know you wish you'd had more time yeah yeah and I just he was such a big presence I mean it's a stupid thing to say in a way but he was such a presence and it was just the point when I was becoming an adult really and could engage with him on. And, you know, I remember reading his final book and saying to him, and this is such a force of will on his part, you know, because he was not that well. And I read his book. And I said, I think your structure is wrong for the following reasons. And he was like, oh, shit, you're right. And so he sort of restructured the book, I mean, which must have been just the last thing he wanted to do. And

well, there's so much left unsaid, I guess guess yeah yeah and we were joking about this before we switched on the microphone but we had you on our podcast a couple of years ago and you said you've been asking for two years and I've kind of always known that I would do your podcast and I knew you asked about three failures and I suppose it's always been in my mind this and it's interesting that it was always I remember thinking at the time I think we had you on what would my three failures be and this is what I thought of and I've thought at various times as I've thought about this recording hang on this second failure why is it your failure and I suppose maybe it's just a sense of responsibility I think I tend to feel quite responsible for quite a lot yeah maybe some people would say rightly but I don't't know. But yeah. I'm honestly on the, I'm on the verge of tears just listening to your voice because it's

a really powerfully beautiful thing for you to have chosen to talk about. And I thank you for your generosity in that because I know it is the opposite of easy talking about this. I think the other thing that it teaches me, it's again about my kids, is that protecting them from pain, you can't, you know, what could he have done? I mean, the heart attack happened to him and all of that, but protecting them from pain and from knowledge about the bad things in the world, you can't do that completely. But Justine and I are very conscious of this, that sense of sort of vulnerability and so on. I think,

well, it maybe relates back to this thing about anxiety, but I sort of want them to go through life as long as possible, not having bad things happen, maybe. Yeah. And I think you made such a good point about when you do have an anxious mindset, and all the worst case scenarios race through your thoughts at regular intervals, and then the worst thing happens, it's very difficult to resurrect your faith in the world. It just is. How did you deal with your grief in the immediate aftermath? Can you remember much by that time? I mean, probably not very well. I think that's the other thing. And maybe this goes back to the thing about the first, which is, I wanted to be there for my mum,

in particular, who was relatively young, was only 59 when he died, and had just sort of quote, unquote, retired, as I remember, I think I probably found it really, really hard to sort of come to terms with it. And I'm just thinking aloud here, but maybe there's a sort of thing of the bouncing back, which I talked about in the first failure, which is also problematic. Yeah. Which is, you kind of accept the loss obviously you can cut yourself off from it like you can become numb I have exactly the same thing a little bit because it's almost like you think well now it's happened as you said earlier about the first failure you know you've just got to carry on and obviously you do and people are resilient did you talk to your brother about

it yes and we definitely did it's interesting really because it makes me think about my upbringing i don't think we were taught brilliantly at talking about feelings we joke in our house because justine is very strong on the talking about feelings thing and we went through a phase of saying to our kids one good feeling of the day and what's one bad feeling of the day and they sort of were like rolling their eyes it's not that they weren't very loving parents because they definitely were and it wasn't that they were sort of distant or didn't hug or kiss or whatever that's definitely the case but i think it wasn't easy and it was a different time it was just a long time ago. It was hard to talk about your feelings, I think. And it's something that I do do and have got better at doing. But maybe there's

just a tendency to sort of close them up too much. So would they, although you knew you were loved, perhaps they didn't ever say, I love you? Oh, no, they did. Oh, they did. Okay. They definitely did. It was very loving in that sense, and very clearly loving. Well, also what they went through, like they just had to keep on going, didn't they? Well, maybe that's, maybe that's the point. I mean, in a way, you know, I said earlier, they didn't talk about the Holocaust experience. You know, my mother lost her father in the war and terrible circumstances. And my father was dislocated

from his mother and his sister who were hiding in Belgium, who survived the war. But this is just terrible trauma. They were very loving. I want to be clear about that. I think, again, it's something that we try and do with our kids, which is to talk about what they felt, what they felt about the day, what they felt about the day what they felt about things and to be sort of trying to be understanding about that I have to say having done a little bit of research into your parents in preparation for this interview they sound like utterly amazing individuals and I want to read a whole milliband history so if you ever get to the stage of writing that book please be sure to send me a copy. Fair enough.

It's an extraordinary story. And it says so much about the latter half of the 20th century and where we find ourselves now. And I really do think that they sound like amazing people. Well, that's very nice of you to say. But I would love to ask you a bit about your relationship with Jewishness, because I know you are a secular type of person. How big a part, if any, has faith and identity played in your life? Not really very much. None. Okay, move on. Because my parents did the kind of rebellion against going to synagogue, of rebellion against going to synagogue, having a strong religious Jewish identity.

And their community wasn't really a Jewish community, or at least not primarily a Jewish community. Their community was a left community. It was there, but they were both atheists. I was conscious, obviously, for obvious reasons of my Jewish heritage. But I heard a, I heard about people who'd been to part of Jewish youth groups and other things. And I feel a bit jealous when I became an adult. But no, it wasn't really there. It wasn't part of our upbringing. Have you ever had therapy, Ed? Yes. Good.

Definitely. Good. Yeah. As you can see, it's a work in progress yeah no it's thank goodness I mean certainly after 2015 and before actually yeah I'd sort of recommend it for everybody well just because of what you were talking about in terms of your anxiety and then also the disconnect that you're capable of as I am where you can just kind of move on I am a massive advocate of therapy still have it every fortnight and it's really helped me kind of forge that mind-body connection

again well you know I think it's interesting you should say this because I think I am more aware of some of the things that we've talked about on this podcast because of the therapy. I don't think I could have talked about the anxiety quite in the way I have a couple of years ago. I don't want to sound again too pious, but I mean, I think it is really, really important to talk about it because I think so many people feel alone with anxiety. And the more I read about it, the more I see how many people it afflicts. And it's true of mental health generally, but I think it's such a hidden demon in a way for many people. Well, I mean, talking about your anxiety, one of the last professions that I would advise someone to go into...

Oh, terrible, wasn't it? Just what was I thinking, Elizabeth? I don't know, Ed. I don't know. What was I thinking? I don't know. I feel, I so feel for you. I just wish you hadn't had to go through like the horror of it because your third failure, and I'm so glad you've chosen this one. It's so, again, very generous of you.

It's your failure to win the 2015 election. Yeah. I mean, your anxiety must have been through the roof in the run up to that. But you know, this is what's so strange about it. This is why it's quite hard to sort of compute in a way. Because as I look back on that period, and I suppose it goes back to the first failure, is I'm pretty resilient. And therefore, when the bacon sandwich happened, okay, I wasn't very happy about it. But I thought, well,

who cares about that? Or when various disasters, and there were a number happened, okay, I wasn't very happy about it. But I thought, well, who cares about that? Or when various disasters, and there were a number happened, mostly, I would just sort of move on. And to say it's sort of water off a duck's back would not be true, you know, and the criticism or some of the humiliations definitely hurt. But I kind of knew the cause that was driving me forward. I wanted to change the country. I believed I was the best person to do it. That's why I stood. That's why I was running to be prime minister. I was so keen to have a shot at it because I thought I had important things to say. You know, then I didn't win. Now, whether you're an anxious person or not, I don't wholly recommend being the leader of a political party and losing a general election that you might be on track to win. I think I say this in the book,

you know, one afternoon, you're talking about the call you might have with President Obama, the next day, you're happy for a call about your PPI. I mean, you know, it's quite a sort of... It's brutal. It's quite brutal. Yeah. And it's so public, because a lot of the time on this podcast, we talk about private failures. But actually, in politics, there's no such thing. Everyone can see that you failed and that must be so difficult and it must be impossible as well not to take personally. It obviously is personal. The interesting thing is, and maybe it does go back to failure number

one, which is the kind of devastation is a bit of a slow burn. So I remember straight afterwards, you sort of feel somewhat a sense of relief, if I'm honest, because it's over. Not relief to have lost because I was desperate to win, but relief that you're out of the limelight. I've thought straight from the get-go, well, I think I said this when I resigned, you know, I'm not the leader of the blame party anymore, but I've got things to say about the country. I'll find different ways of saying them. I'm not somebody who believes that politics is only, this is something I say a lot in the book, who believes that politics is only shaped by the leaders. In fact, I actually think it's sort of movements and people who actually have such a powerful say

in the conditions that produce change. And so I thought, well, okay, you know, I've got ideas, I can still, I'm relatively young, I was 45 then, you know, I've still got things to say. Now, I then struggled to find the outlet for that. And that's when, you know, Geoff Lloyd, my co-host on the podcast is a sort of massive credit, because he came along and said to somebody who'd worked with me, I've got this slightly mad idea that Ed might do a podcast with me. And I was a bit reticent, but it has become a sort of great outlet for me to talk about ideas and find a different way of doing it, which is kind of what I wanted to do, really. What was the lowest point that you can remember after that general election defeat, after you'd

got through the initial phase of almost relief that you didn't have this huge burden on your shoulders? Was there a moment where you just found yourself like, in your pants watching Loose Women being like what have I become? I grew a beard actually on the family holiday to Australia a sure sign of sort of well actually beards that became fashionable not cause and effect but I think it's you gradually realize that while every word I said as a leader of the opposition people will be interested in suddenly you're a bit irrelevant and so then a certain purposelessness starts to set in. So I was a backbench MP, that was an important job. But then beyond that, I was

thinking, well, what's my purpose here? I think it wasn't exactly a moment, it was just that sense. And it's the adjustment to relative irrelevance, which I think is pretty hard. You know, adjusting to one's new status, it just takes a long time, really. And you said that you went into therapy after that. Was that to help with that? Well, I'd been in it before, actually. But I sort of wasn't doing it really when I was leader, which may be a mistake in retrospect.

I mean, I sort of did feel I needed it afterwards, definitely. Taking the step to go back onto the front line, you said at the beginning, was shadow business secretary that was quite hard because my previous experience of being on the front line it's almost like this is what's sort of slightly paradoxical about it it's like the experience of at the time the bacon sandwich the ed stone the this the that the other all those things they were kind of bad at the time but I wasn't sitting in a fetal position in my room unable to go out I carried on it's just then going back to the front line you know I hesitate to say PTSD but a sort of slight sense of you know triggering you know

yeah going back into it was quite a hard step to take because you think oh god is it all gonna happen again and then it's obviously feels very, because I'm not the leader. And thank God. And you know what I mean? It's sort of, it's a different experience. But it is hard. And there are lots more difficult jobs to do than politics. But politics definitely has quite big sacrifices, family sacrifices, other sacrifices, privacy, all of that. And I'm conscious of that. You mentioned there the bacon sandwich in the edstone and for anyone who isn't as apprised as I am with Ed Miliband trivia the bacon sandwich refers to a photograph that was taken by an evening stand of photographer Jeremy Selwyn of

you eating a bacon sandwich which for some reason people thought was the worst way anyone had ever eaten a bacon sandwich and I'm not quite sure it quite sure top 10 top 10 top 10 but if you take a photo of anyone eating anything it's gonna look bad it was my idea to eat the bloody sandwich as well I mean what an idiot at least they only ate half the sandwich what would have been easier to eat I don't know like cheese a carrot and the edstone was an eight foot six inch two ton slab of limestone with labour's six key election pledges carved onto its surface which you said if you got in you were going to put in the garden of number 10 downing street yeah even that i was a bit skeptical about at the time i can't claim complete foresight on the edstone generally but that i was like i'm not sure that's such a great idea.

Apparently it's in some storage unit somewhere, somewhere. Maybe I'll go and do a visit, yeah. You should. That would be a really good way of reconnecting with your past trauma and just like facing your demons. But alongside all of this, Ed Miliband, there was the rise of Milifandom. Yes. Which was an incredibly popular online campaign celebrating your good looks and charisma

and calling you Miller Bay. What did you make of that? What did Justine make of it? I was sure it was a case of mistaken identity, actually. I don't know. I mean, on the bacon sandwich, genuinely, I think I've said this already, I genuinely thought to myself, well, if this election gets decided, and by the way, I don't think it was decided by the bacon sandwich. This is what's so bizarre about the whole thing yes lots of people know i ate a bacon sandwich badly it wasn't a photo opportunity it was because i was slightly at a loose end of a visit and i thought i'll go and get a bacon sandwich and eat it which was a bit of a silly thing to do in retrospect but this is for political nerds you know people say that

neil kinnock lost the 1992 elections or a rally he had in Sheffield. Yeah, we're all right. I just don't buy that either. So it's a slightly ex post facto thing. Was the bacon sandwich good, by the way? Did it taste good? It's funny, Elizabeth, it's hard to remember now. It's sort of slightly kind of, it's slightly coloured by events. I mean, it was perfectly nice. Yeah, it probably wasn't quite worth the hassle. But you know, what's amazing is that a guy once came up to me and said, I'm the son of the man who sold you the bacon sandwich. So there you go.

But I don't think I can blame him. Millie Fandom, I mean, all of that is such a blur. This is a bit of a name drop, but I've got a friend of mine, Paul Greengrass, who's a film director. And I used to talk to him a bit before I did my conference speeches. And he always used to say to me, look, director and i used to talk to him a bit before i did my conference speeches and he always used to say to me look very few people get a chance to talk to the country about where it is and where it's going i don't want to sound too high-minded but the thing i sort of feel and i still feel

about that election i feel like i made lots of mistakes not just the sandwich i should have been bolder all of these things but i sort of feel and this is going back to your therapy thing you know this is in a way one thing that's quite important to sort of understand you have to get to the stage in life where you think yourself well look i've done my best nobody is perfect and people make lots of mistakes as somebody says to me it's not your best achievement it's your best effort you do your best and actually justine's parents were very good at saying this to her when she was growing up which is you just gotta do your best. And actually, Justine's parents were very good at saying this to her when she was growing up, which is you just got to do your best. Yeah. And it's your best at the time, not your best six years later,

after you've thought further about it, after you, you know, re-litigate it. You know, you did your best. And then the country sort of decides, really. How do you feel now? Because, as you said at the beginning of this interview, there was a woman on the street who said, I wish you were our prime minister, mate. And I'm sure a lot of people wish that, given everything that's happened since then.

How do you feel about the state in which you left the country and the Labour Party? Do you feel guilt or do you feel like, well, I told you so, and if only you'd elected me? I think neither, really. I mean, on the country, I told you so, and if only you'd elected me? I think neither, really. I mean, on the country, I just have to accept that for whatever reason, more people wanted David Cameron to be Prime Minister than me. That might be partly because of mistakes I made. And I take full responsibility for having lost. It's hard when you've just been in power as we've been for 13

years. I wish I'd won. You know, David Cameron famously tweeted chaos with Ed Miliband. But you know, the country made its decision, there were big forces that were driving this, things would have been very different. And then on the Labour Party, I sort of know what you're getting at. Jeremy Corbyn succeeded me under certain leadership rules that I brought in. I thought at the time, every self respecting party is having its members elect its leader. That was the case with the Tories, Liberal Democrats. It's the case with, I brought in those rules. Nobody's now saying those rules should be got rid of. So in a sense, I deeply regret not winning the election. But what I don't think is I'm going to sort of say, well,

it's all on me. Yeah, it's all on me. People make decisions. And this is the way things turn out. And obviously, I'm desperate for Labour to get back into government. You don't have to answer this question because I imagine it's sensitive territory. But I mentioned in the introduction that one of your rivals for the leadership of the Labour Party was your older brother. Do you feel it was worth it, given that you did then lose the general election? Was there an element of like, have I put at risk something more important, which is my familial relationship? feel that I have something distinctive, important to say about the country, about where it was going, about where the Labour Party needed to go and what it needed to stand for. It's interesting the different views people have about this. Some people would say, well, he was the older brother, so you shouldn't have stood. And other people say, well,

why is it the case that just because somebody is the older brother, they get to be the leader and the younger brother doesn't. Now, obviously, I tend to the second view. That isn't to say that there isn't been sacrifice and great difficulty in our relationship as a result of it. But I think partly I don't think I'm a sort of, as I've tried to say in this interview, a kind of looking back, I try not to be a kind of should I have done this differently person. But I also think even when I think that, I think you have to do what you think is right at the time. And I did think it was right. And I do think I had distinctive things to say. And I think it was right to stand. So who knows what would have happened if he'd

won and so on. I mean, it's just, I don't think it's fully knowable, really. And how are things now? A lot better, not surprisingly. Passage of time happened more than 10 years ago. He's living in New York, doing a great job running a refugee organisation. We talk on the phone, including about my mum, who's getting on a lot. She's 86. But it's never going to be exactly as it was before for obvious reasons. But, you know, we love each other very much. And it's a

long distance relationship as a result of where he's living. But as I say, it's a long time ago. Yeah. I've just got a couple more questions for you. One is, do you care about being popular? I mean, maybe too much. Oh, that's so interesting. I didn't think you were going to say that. That's fascinating and so honest. And I, again, massively relate. It's so different at different levels, isn't it? Because I try and be sensitive to the people around me and what they're feeling. When you say, do you care about being popular? Do you mean in the country? Do you mean, tell me what you're thinking about? I suppose I mean both ways. So I suppose I mean like popularity with the electorate, but also

for instance, the popularity of your podcast. So I mean it in that respect, but I think also I mean, do you care about being liked as well on a personal level? I do care about being liked and not offending people actually. Well, I don't know. Well, How do I put this? I think if people disagree with me, politically or, you know, in their views, that's the way it is. I don't know. It's such a difficult question. But I think it's important to try and treat people, I don't know, well, I guess that's sounding a bit platitudinous. But inherent in politics is a sense of, there'll be some people who like you and some people who don't, and some people who agree with you be some people who like you and some people who don't and some people who agree with you and some people who don't. I could never go into politics for multiple reasons but I could not deal with knowing that so many people dislike me and what I stood for and that being made so

visible through social media and online commentary I just couldn't deal with that. For the last year or so I haven't spent any time on Twitter, because I find it just not because of what people say about me, although that's not great sometimes, or maybe often, but it's just because of people taking lumps out of each other. I don't mind people disliking my views, disagreeing with my views. I think it's important to maintain civil relationships with people, like in other conservative MPs in the House of Commons I'm sort of you know civil and polite to I suppose inevitably in politics there'll be lots of people who don't like you and I think you've just got to sort of accept that. So will you read your Amazon reviews for Go Big when it's published? Ah good question no I will try not to and next

let's see whether I do no I'll try not to And I was quite careful as leader not to spend all my time reading the newspapers, because I think that does drive you a bit bananas. My final question, Ed, is if you could sum up what you think failure has taught you in your life, what do you think you'd say? In three words or less? I mean, I think one of the things from hearing you speak is that it's taught you the depth of your own resilience. Yes. I think know why you're doing what you're doing and keep going. We all fail in different ways. I was looking at your book again and it says that, we all fail. And why I think your podcast is really important is because it is honest about that. And we're a society that goes on and celebrates winners. But everybody fails in different respect, including so called winners. And you've got to keep going and remember

why you're in it, whatever it is that you're in, and why you're doing it and what you learn from it. And I do think there's something about trying to reflect and trying to learn from failure, but to keep going. Ed Miliband, you have been such a wonderful, joyous guest, and you were well worth the two-year wait to get you. And everyone must rush out and buy Go Big How to Fix Our World because I really did find it such a hopeful book and you wrote it with great wit and intelligence and I really appreciated it and I really appreciate you. Thank you so, so much for coming on How to Fail. Well, it's been a pleasure and you made it very easy. That's what I like to hear.

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