David Miliband is the favourite to replace Gordon Brown as the next Labour leader. He talks to the Shropshire Star’s London reporter SUNITA PATEL.

He has been famously photographed with a limp banana and more recently mocked for compiling a guide for supporters on how to hold a house party, but there’s nothing geeky about David Miliband’s ambition. About this he is deadly serious.

The shadow foreign secretary believes he is the only candidate with the drive, experience and strength to fire the imagination of the public, unify his party and take on David Cameron.

And the fightback starts with winning back the support of Labour’s disillusioned supporters in areas such as Telford, where the party’s MP David Wright held on to his seat with a 981 majority after a 6.3 per cent swing in the vote from Labour to the Tories in the May 6 general election.

“Too many people thought we weren’t on their side on issues like jobs, welfare and immigration. And too many people thought we didn’t have clear plans for the future on education, the economy, crime, and that’s what we have got to put right,” says Mr Miliband.

“I represent a change of approach – not just the changing of the guard in the Labour Party.

“Our support in the West Midlands has many loyal supporters, but we lost a lot of people and we have got to get them back. We have got to get them back in among the people who are badly off, and we have got to get them back in among the middle income people.

“The Labour Party only succeeds as a majority party. It can never succeed just appealing to a minority.”

The battle to succeed Gordon Brown has been lacklustre, except for the scrap between the 45-year-old and his younger brother Ed, the shadow energy and climate change secretary.

While the elder brother remains the frontrunner in the race, the younger sibling has been fast gaining ground and is now hot on his heels.

The battle to succeed Mr Brown could not be closer, increasing the bitter “battle of the Milibands”, with both trading blows over their visions for the future direction of the party.

Rival leadership contender Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary, has gone as far as to call for an end to the “soap opera” – warning it is taking the focus off the main issues and risks turning off voters.

But the leader of the contest insists there are no tensions in the Miliband fold and that their brotherly love remains intact.

“There is nothing soap operatic about it. We have run a positive, warm campaign. We don’t do soap opera,” he says.

Ed Miliband, whose backers include former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, has positioned himself firmly to the left of his elder brother and ditched New Labour.

While David Miliband, whose rival camp and key supporters include arch-Blairite and New Labour architect Lord Mandelson and former chancellor Alistair Darling, concedes that New Labour was far from perfect.

However, it should be proud of its record and remain a party of broad appeal – to its core supporters and the middle classes.

He believes the party should face up to its failures and be humble about its successes.

He insists Labour was beginning to crack the problem of tackling poverty through the regional development agencies like Advantage West Midlands which are to be abolished by the coalition government, university expansion and targeted support for key industries such as the automotive sector, but admits the 10p tax rate was a “hammer blow”.

“What people want to say is either everything that New Labour did was alright, or let’s repudiate everything that New Labour did. I don’t have either of those positions,” he says.

“The great things that we did we learn from, the mistakes we put right.”

And he does not blame ex-PM and leader Mr Brown for Labour’s demise after 13 years in power.

“Gordon wasn’t popular, but it wasn’t only because of Gordon. We did not renew in office. The weaknesses that were left from Tony Blair were not addressed and the strengths were thrown away,” he continues.

“We talked about poverty, but not inequality. We needed to do more for manufacturing. The strengths were a very clear purpose of rebuilding the health and education services successfully, a very clear commitment to stay on the right side on crime and anti-social behaviour and an economic record which for 10 years delivered a lot of prosperity.

“The job in 2007 was to correct the weaknesses and build on the strengths and I’m afraid that did not happen.”

“My vision is on the Labour Party membership card – power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few.

“I want politics to be about decent jobs, affordable housing, safer streets and the things that matter to people in their communities.”

And the war in Iraq?

“The Iraq war was a judgement, a decision. I voted to support the government. If I had known then what I know now that there are no WMD, I wouldn’t have voted for it,” he replies.

Mr Miliband believes jobs and the economy will be the key issues in the years to come.

He has also made it part of his campaign to save the British pub, get owners of homes worth more than £2 million to pay an annual “mansion tax” to help the poor and has pledged a doubling of the bank levy to boost manufacturing.

He wants the Labour Party to be a “living and breathing movement for change in every community” and take the fight to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government which he believes has embarked on a risky economic gamble and on riskier still cuts.

However, he thinks it will go the five-years until the next general election.

“I think they are taking risks where they need sound judgement – on the economy where they have torpedoed consumer and business confidence, and on the health service where they are threatening the biggest disorganisation in 60 years,” he says.

“So they are being risky where they need to be careful and they are being weak and confused where they need to be strong, for example, on crime and anti-social behaviour and the green agenda they are all over the place.

“However, I think they will last. This is a coalition of convenience that will last because it is going to be very inconvenient for both parties if they break. I think people have to prepare themselves for a long haul – more likely than not the full term, though nothing’s certain.”

And he thinks he is the best qualified to take on Mr Cameron and his Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and put Labour back in charge.

“I can fire the imagination of the public as well as the party. I think I can unify the party. I think I am in the lead in the battle of ideas and I think I am a credible prime minister,” he enthuses.

“I am not interested in refighting the battles of the past. I am completely focused on the future of Britain, and that’s what matters. I want every single Labour MP to be asked and to think how am I going to contribute to the re-election of a new Labour government.”

The married father of two is closely associated with the Blair era. And as the ballot papers for the leadership were released by Labour HQ this week – so was the ex-PM’s autobiography.

It is a book certain to reignite the Blair/Brown feud within the Labour Party – and spark a fresh civil war.

In its final pages, Mr Blair warns Labour supporters against lurching to the left – a clear endorsement of David Miliband’s leadership bid.

The ex-Cabinet minister insists the days of Labour infighting are over.

Asked whether he thinks Mr Blair’s re-emergence into the limelight will have a damaging impact on his campaign, or boost it, he answers: “Memoirs are about the past. I am focused on the future of Britain. I am sure the memoirs will be very interesting, but they will be interesting for historians, not for people trying to chart the future of the country. “

Will he be buying a copy?

“I don’t think I have got much time for that,” he adds, with a smile.