In May Heat Street reported that David Miliband might be in line for a job in a future Hillary Clinton administration.
Three months on and the talk in Miliband’s New York office is louder than ever that the former British foreign secretary is indeed ready to quit his current post so that he can work for the US government.
A source said it’s an “open secret” that the 51-year-old is “preparing” to return to politics and is now considered ideally equipped to become a key Clinton foreign policy adviser.
Miliband is the £300,000 ($400,000) a year president of charity International Rescue Committee (IRC). He is currently visiting refugee camps in Greece in this capacity.
The source said that since taking up the IRC post in September 2013, Miliband has impressed senior political figures by expanding its profile and reach.
He is in charge of 12,000 staff and a $450 million budget, all of which is considered good training for a job working alongside Mrs Clinton.
On a personal level, Miliband and Clinton have been close for almost a decade.
In 2009, while he was foreign secretary, she described him to American Vogue as “vibrant, vital, attractive and smart”.
The next year, when he lost the Labour leadership to his younger brother Ed, he confided to Mrs Clinton by email about his heartache:
And just the other day Miliband posted a tweet about Mrs C which seemed nothing if not proud.
Furthermore, in March he said of the presidential hopeful: “She’s obviously very intelligent, she’s obviously very worldly. She’s very funny. When she smiles the full smile, she’s got a fantastic smile.”
Of course, Miliband has a thing for older women: his wife, Louise Shackleton, is almost five years his senior.