David Miliband and "Muscular Liberalism"

David Milliband, former British Foreign Secretary and defeated Labour Party leadership candidate, has a piece(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/28/uk-extremists-labour-cultural-economics?INTCMP=SRCH) in today's Guardian attacking David Cameron's call for a 'muscular liberalism' to replace state multiculturalism in the UK.

To me the most striking feature of this article is how it reveals the utter moral bankruptcy of his "New Labour" approach. Purging the Labour Party of some of its extreme tendencies was a necessary project in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but at some stage along the way, people like Milliband seem to have lost their way. While it may have been sensible to frame electoral strategy around what key electoral constituencies may want, it appears that such strategising came to completely crowd out all other considerations in some people's minds.

It is striking that Milliband's analysis of the issues around liberalism and multiculturalism is framed almost exclusively in terms of what muscular liberalism might "have to offer" key constituencies and how the certain groups are "vital terrritory" for the Labour Party.

There is not a singe line in the article devoted to considering whether there is in fact a problem with illiberalism in migrant communities and what an appropriate response on a moral, rather than tactical, level might be. Electoral strategising was meant to be a means to the end of achieving moral goals. At some stage it appears to have become and end in itself.