Miliband promises return of blog

The foreign secretary said he wanted to 'engage the public'

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has promised to re-start his personal weblog after a gap of two months.

Mr Miliband stopped writing his blog after leaving his previous job of environment secretary in Gordon Brown's Cabinet reshuffle in June.

But, during a 10 Downing Street webchat on Monday, he said it was important for the Foreign Office to "engage" people.

The "Mili-blog", which started in 2006, was criticised by opponents for being too "on-message" and too expensive.

But Mr Miliband's supporters insisted it was worthwhile and gave the public a better insight into the workings of Whitehall.

'Completely committed'

On the Downing Street site, one questioner said that Mr Miliband's "fondness for new communication methods - blogging, YouTube videos, and so on - is well documented".

He asked whether the "more conservative (small 'c') atmosphere of the diplomatic service changed his view of such transparent, direct channels?"

He added: "How can the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office], whose centralised methods changed little over the course of centuries, respond to the 'I can' society he described earlier this year?"

Mr Miliband, MP for South Shields, replied: "I am completely committed to the idea that diplomacy needs to engage the public as well as diplomatic elite and also to the notion that I need to lead that in the Foreign Office.

"So the blog will be back, supplemented by other tools for discussion and debate."