Miliband makes a charge

Is this David Miliband setting out his stall to be Labour leader?

After the last few days of rumpou and plotting,this morning's Guardian carries a piece by the foriegn secretary entitled Against all odds we can still win, on a platform for change

In it Miliband claims

The starting point is not debating personalities but winning the argument about our record, our vision for the future and how we achieve it.

But surley in a critisism of Brown's message he says

When people hear exaggerated claims, either about failure or success, they switch off. That is why politicians across all parties fail to connect.
To get our message across, we must be more humble about our shortcomings but more compelling about our achievements.

There are reflections too,he says that Nhs reform should have been quicker,that their should have been more planning before Iraq

We should have devolved more power away from Whitehall and Westminster. We needed a clearer drive towards becoming a low-carbon, energy-efficient economy, not just to tackle climate change but to cut energy bills.

But perhaps most tellingly in the piece,he attempts to place clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives

The Tories overclaim for what they are against because they don't know what they are for. I disagreed with Margaret Thatcher, but at least it was clear what she stood for

he says but

The problem with David Cameron is the reverse. His problem is he is a conservative, not a radical. He doesn't share a restlessness for change. He may be likable and sometimes hard to disagree with, but he is empty. He is a politician of the status quo — even a status quo he consistently voted against — not change.