David Miliband’s options

Downing Street may  have dismissed as “complete nonsense” a newspaper report that the coalition was considering inviting David Miliband to become British ambassador to Washington. But the former foreign secretary is one of a few younger British politicians with international standing and while it would be odd to appoint him to a government job – and stranger still for him to accept — the coalition should consider putting him forward for a number of international assignments.

Potential jobs include the international community’s “high representative” in Bosnia; as a UN envoy to Yemen; or as the representative of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan. In future, these three posts need to be filled by a hard-charging, energetic politician with good links both in the United States and Europe.

If Ban ki-Moon wins re-election UN Secretary-General, as looks likely, he will want to re-shuffle his cabinet. That may also be the time to switch the senior Briton from  Valerie Amos, the Labour peer who is the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, with David Miliband, whose standing would be able to get for the UK a much more high-profile job either as Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs or head of UN peacekeeping.