As David Yendley says, it's hard to disagree with Mr. Miliband. It would be nice to save the world, help the old folks and educate children properly. It would be easier if the old folks' pensions hadn't been decimated by Mr. Miliband's boss, and rigorous learning and testing hadn't been forced out of schools by the sort of 'progressive' nonsense this conference will be full of. But how does Mr. Miliband, the obviously under-worked foreign secretary plan to achieve these goals? He doesn't actually say, surprisingly enough.

MDHinton, Sieradz, Poland

What a joke - David Milliband really doesn't know how good he has it or should I say had it!

Michael Hunt, Tirana, Albania

Why on earth is the Times giving free reign to this immature Brownie who acts and looks completely out of his depth. He is another of the current Cabinet of bland, charmless and inexperienced toadies lemmings that is helping to usher his party over the cliff. This article says absolutely nothing but is couched in politico-speak to make it seem intelligent.

The contradiction in terms of claiming to want small government on one hand and then suggesting that good head teachers should have several schools (i.e. centralised management) uder their command seems odd, even for one of the current members of our 'government'.

Simon Jarvis, London,

This is a very brave article. I am sure that many of his Labour colleagues will be uncomfortable about a number of his ideas. My views are right of centre but I find little to disagree on.
David Milliband will do us a service if he provokes the Tory leadership to clarify in return what they stand for.
It is possible that this will reveal embarrassing gaps.
Milliband’s mention of interschool cooperation to ensure equal opportunities for all pupils is a case in point. He talks of schools organised in a chain under a Super-Head. This will allow the participating schools to pool their resources for the specialised areas of the curriculum and initial school allocation that causes so much stress will become an irrelevance.
The debate about school consortiums dates back at last two years and the "Times" educational team has been in on it from the start . One suspects that Conservative spokesmen have not yet cottoned on, even though it would fit neatly with their own proposals!

David Yendley, Greater Manchester, UK

I expected this to be pushed through my letter box so that having read it I could display the Labour slogan in my window. Time is up Mr Milliband, you have been rumbled but I expect that the message may not yet have been received at Ivory Towers.

Wilf, Doncaster,

If you really believe in personal liberty, then embrace the principal that an informed consenting adult should be free to do anything s/he wants unless it harms someone else. Stop people suing riding stables because they fell off a horse. Legalize drugs. End the nanny state.

Rowan, Oxford,

I found that rather persuasive.

David John Marusza, Islington, London

Its ingenous isn't it, talking in a language that the
average working man can't understand. This piece
a some kind of world circular. Appeal to the middle
ground and hope the working mans too stupid to
see the treason.

We've had no say, so don't waste your patronising.

M walker, Nr Bromsgrove, worcs

Nice laundry list of wants there..But I see no mention of cost and cost to all those who want all these "items"...How Margaret Thatcher figures into you're diatribe is beyond me..you should have rather penned you're article "Socialism Begats Socialism Begats Socialism"...but you should also pen another one too, "Where's The Payoff?"...

Gary Wever, Las Vegas, US/NV

I wonder at the intelligence of some politicians. It is utter pointless and completely futile to engage in writing this academic diatribe whilst ignoring all the world collapse around you.
Financial markets are collapsing - and like it or not it will affect all of us. Prices are soaring - vis Gas Electricity, Petrol etc.
Social Services are not working. Education is a joke.
And I supported this lot.
All they have done for 10 years is create a layer of bureaucracy that is killing the health servixe, civil service, local government and it's out of my money !
Aspirations - let me tell you Mr Milliband.....our aspirations are to have thestate interfere less and to leave us to run our own lives.

George Herbert, London, UK

Is he daft, or does he think we are?

Sal, York,

"Radical liberals, originating in the late 19th century, started from the individual not society. Their goal was the freedom and flourishing of the individual. "

Right, and how did these "radical liberals" aim to achieve it? With a CCTV camera on every corner? With low-level local council employees reading citizens' email and listening to their telephone calls? By means of a British version of the Stasi? By children informing on their parents? By removing choice in education and health care? By allowing "suspects" to be held for ninety days without evidence being presented to a magistrate? With social engineering and brainwashing for five-year olds?

You mean those radical liberals? I know radical liberals, Minister, and believe me, you are no liberal.

jon livesey, Sunnyvale, CA/UK

Your quite right Mr Miliband it is not good to operate under 1997 policy's..Leeds consulted and had agreed a unified childrens service that everybody in the city was happy with.During 2004 some bright spark from the DOH decided to change the plan go grandious so to speak ,and arranged an outline business case for a new childrens hospital? during 2008 it was considered that the Making Leeds Better proposal that included the childrens hospital was not affordable???????and we are now reverting back to the 1997 arrangements.The people responsible just walked away !!!!!!!!!! we are now told that we are awaiting 2 not 1 outline business cases to be approved for childrens services in Leeds.Can you get on the case now please and move things on and get our children services they need now.

Mary E Hoult , Leeds , Yorkshire

This article is written in a futile quest for power.

Nothing said or written (save possibly Neil Kinnock's disasterous performance in Sheffield in 1992) will alter the direction of the pendulum that is public opinion and cynicism. That swing is now irretrievably moving away from the current incumbent.

Its policies and ambitions are therefore irrelevant, as are those of the Opposition.

David Williams, Eastnor, England

Oh dear. My respect for the Times has vanished almost without trace. This is supposed to be a newspaper, not a mouthpiece for Labour propaganda. Honestly, this sort of crap is worthy of Goebbels himself.

Nick, London,

This Man adopted his children from America, what does that say about his interest in the U.K. and it's problems?

VJB, London,

I love the second paragraph, 'what counts is what works' -Bank of England, Asbo's & Nuclear power, astonishing since the first two palinly aren't working and the last point is we were promised a debate, but the government had already made its mind up anyway and is persuing nuclear energy as amtter of policy, hardly anything to crow about. Just be gone with you.

Andrew Wakeling, London, uk

"We should expect chains of schools ... to emerge so that this innovation can spread to scale. A world-class headteacher should not be confined to managing one school. They should lead change across a whole network".

An effective, inspirational HT needs to lead a small school (fewer than 800 students) so he, and every other teacher in the school, knows every single student by name. That's how you create effective discipline. Instead, under Labour, a good HT is immediately exported elsewhere and what made him effective in the first place is immediately lost. Genius!

The problem with any party of government, particularly one that's been power for some time, is that the members of the party forget what real life is like. Every member of the government should spend a month as an Average Joe: no car, no expenses, no second home allowance, etc. Then come back to us and tell us that you still know all the challenges that we face.

Charles, Hungerford, UK

Oh where to start??? How about

"Social democrats started in the late 19th century asking what sort of society they wanted. Their goal was the equal or just distribution of resources. Their means were the state."

For example - the fact that ordinary citizens' pension pots, funded by hard work and saving, are now capped at a level far below the amount that would allow them the same annuity available to government ministers through such "just distribution of resources" (or "taxation" as it is otherwise known). Result - we will all be equally poor in our old age (except our present masters of course).

Truly everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.

John, Edinburgh, UK

Yes. Thank you David Milliband for, finally, confessing that the Labour Party, old or new, no longer has its own values, principles, ideology, intellectual approach or reason for existence.

It abandoned all of the above when its "get into power at all costs", methodology (translated by you above as "what counts is what works").

Pragmatism is a necessary, but not sufficient, quality of great leadership.

Please. Do not scrabble around for some second-hand ideology. Admit that the great Liberal and Libertarian tradition is held firmly in the hearts of the Liberal Democrats. So do come and join them cap in hand.

People will see your panic-ridden attempts at asking our party to try on LibDem clothes as desperate as those of the servants of that Emperor who had just realised that he is indeed naked before the people.

Jim Murray, Liverpool,

"Labour’s successes and failures have changed what citizens expect from government."

What we expect from this Government is ever increasing levels of spying and surveillance, higher taxes, an ever more interfering and authoritarian state which squanders money on placing propaganda type adverts on the radio every 5 minutes. A Government which treats the people with high handed contempt and utterly ignores their wishes on issues such as the EU referendum question. I could go on but these are the sort of things we expect. What we actually want is to be left alone without the Government prying into our every move and interfering in every aspect of our lives, taking our money and squandering it.. Not that David Milliband and his acolytes are going to take a blind bit of notice of what we want.

Simon, Chatham, Kent

"It is one thing to ditch dogma; new Labour became expert at that before 1997. It is another to build a coherent ideology that provides a clear sense of direction for the country and speaks to people’s aspirations. That is our challenge today. "

That was a challenge for eleven years - and Labour failed to meet it.

candre, Livingston, Scotland

The only thing Brown is driving forward to is electoral defeat.
Brown is out of touch, out of ideas and in a year or two out of
office.

Denver Watt, Osaka,