Get the nibbles in and have a quick vacuum! David Miliband's embarrassing guide to hosting a party

By Tim Shipman
Updated: 20:42 EDT, 20 August 2010

For a man trying to shake off his reputation as a banana-wielding geek, David Miliband was probably ill advised to try to emulate Barack Obama’s election house parties.

But the Labour leadership candidate’s latest campaign wheeze – to get his supporters to hold Obama-style neighbourly meetings to drum up support – has backfired.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary has sent his supporters a six-page memo explaining how they should to talk to each other.

The bizarrely patronising document also tells his young community organisers to give their homes a ‘quick vacuum’ – but only if they feel like it – and to lay on the nibbles when their friends gather to talk about matters Miliband.

‘Get in from work, give the place a quick vacuum and general tidy (or not, if you’re not that type),’ the memo advises.

‘Put the oven on and get the nibbles in. If there are drinks, get them chilling. No one can resist a delicious spread of food!’

Perhaps surprisingly, there is no mention of bananas, the fruit Mr Miliband was seen clutching at Labour conference two years ago, a pose which helped scupper any chance he had of ousting Gordon Brown.

Mr Obama won the White House on a slogan of hope and change using an army of young helpers recruited at community house parties.

Mr Miliband’s so-called Movement for Change promises similar delights, with supporters urged to sit down and watch Miliband campaign videos from YouTube.

 Lucky revellers face the exciting prospect of ‘a phone call from either David himself or one of his high-profile supporters’.

But rather than rely on a groundswell of grassroots support, Mr Miliband seems intent on delivering highly proscriptive top-down instructions.

The document verges towards social engineering. Those organising home parties are instructed that they must ‘try and build accountability into’ their relationships with friends.

‘If someone confirms then they should be there and you need to let people know you are disappointed if they don’t turn up… even if it’s just your mates!’

Once assembled, the document tells the Miliband enthusiasts how to start talking to each other

In obsessive, minute by minute, detail the memo plots a 90-minute meeting from start to finish in a manner likely to confirm Mr Miliband’s reputation as a bit of a political sad case.

Everyone present is ordered to introduce themselves and let the others know what political groups they have joined.

The host is then expected to share personal stories of the things they want to change in their community,before moving on to their frustrations with the Labour Party.

The Milibandees are then instructed to find ‘common ground’ and think about the ‘next steps’ to change the party and their communities.

The control freakery continues in an instruction for the host to read a long closing statement which concludes that ‘there are three things that I think we need to do’ – joining Labour, transforming their communities and, of course, ‘support David Miliband and this Movementfor Change’.

Even then the host’s work is not done. They’re told to get everyone to sign up ten friends to Mr Miliband’s website and then write up their experiences.

The instructions add: ‘Fill in the evaluation form and return it to David’s leadership team.’

The leaked document was greeted with ridicule in Westminster and hilarity among Mr Miliband’s leadership rivals.

Andy Burnham’s spokesman said that he attends his own house parties

but ‘brings his own biscuits’. A rival campaign spokesman said: ‘It’s just patronising. The fact that someone was paid to write this drivel sticks in the craw of many people.’

Mr Miliband’s spokesman said the guide had been requested by members of the Movement for Change and stressed that it was deliberately ‘lighthearted’.

Laughing off the ridicule, she added: ‘Every leader needs to know how to run a party.’