The charity chief behind a disastrous charity campaign tie-in with Game of Thrones could be heading for a job in the Hillary Clinton White House.
David Miliband, a hapless former British cabinet minister, used his position as boss of the International Rescue Committee to engineer a pro-refugee campaign with HBO that sparked a fan backlash and has come nowhere near its fundraising target.
Nonetheless, Miliband, whose tenure as Foreign Secretary overlapped with Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State, is reportedly hoping for a job if she wins the general election.
The Sun newspaper reported that Miliband told friends he is hoping for a top diplomatic job if Hillary triumphs, and would ditch his British citizenship to take it.
Doubts over his suitability for a sensitive role could well be raised after he managed to alienate thousands of fans across the world by drafting their favorite TV stars to support a divisive political agenda.
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The Game of Thrones-themed Rescue Has No Boundaries campaign saw actors including Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) and Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) fly the flag for the IRC.
Unfortunately, their support for IRC policies – which include the US upping the number of refugees it resettles from 10,000 to 100,000 – sparked an online mutiny.
The campaign was made with Miliband’s personal involvement – a glowing New York Times write-up told how he thrashed the plan out with HBO chief Richard Plepler over a cosy lunch.
David Miliband's career illustrates an iron law of politics: do not allow yourself to be photographed with a banana pic.twitter.com/WJDJh8ZWh6
— Phil Rodgers (@PhilRodgers) March 27, 2013
Fans descended on YouTube and social media feeds where the plaintive, black-and-white videos were posted, demanding that the show keep out of real-world politics.
At the time of writing, the flagship campaign video has amassed in excess of three times as many down-votes as up-votes on YouTube. The IRC closed the comment section after discussion turned overwhelmingly critical.
Where they are allowed to speak, fans mostly ask the stars whether they would be willing to accept refugees in their communities, instead of asking ordinary people to.
Many of the most vociferous responses come from Europe’s “migrant trail”, where tensions have soared amidst the mass movement west of people from Africa and the Middle East.
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The IRC advocates that Europe up its commitments to refugees substantially as well – to 540,000 by 2021.
It seems unlikely to happen soon, with the political tide on the continent rushing every-further from the Manhattan charity offices of the IRC towards Trump-esque populists who long for border walls.
As well as annoying fans, the campaign is falling far short of achieving the charity’s raison d’être – the accumulation of cash.
Despite pegging a target of $1 million, the campaign has stalled at around $260,000. Some days it has received zero donations.
Miliband, formerly a leading figure in the UK Labour Party, became an effective political exile after losing a party leadership contest to his own brother, who was then soundly defeated in a general election.
According to The Sun, he has all but given up on his original party, which is now even further from power under current leader Jeremy Corbyn. Instead he is pegging his hopes on a future in the US.
However, Clinton may wish to think twice before bringing Miliband into her inner circle given his apparent inability even to pull off a feel-good charity campaign.
