( L - R ) Brown, Miliband

LONDON (AP):

Britain's Foreign secretary set off a frenzy of speculation yesterday with a newspaper article saying the Labour Party had to change immediately to avoid defeat in the next election.

It was not what David Miliband said that excited the most comment, but what he didn't say. Not once in his 900-word prescription for the party's future did he mention his current boss, beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Miliband, a protégé of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and a person often seen as a possible future prime minister, denied under questioning yesterday that he was trying to oust Brown as party leader. His article, he told reporters, was an attack on the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, David Cameron, not Brown.

But he repeatedly declined to rule out running against Brown as leader.

Radio talk shows and pundits buzzed with close analyses of Miliband's comments and omissions.

Defeats

"Labour won three elections by offering real change ... , " Miliband wrote in the Guardian newspaper. "We must do so again."

Recent defeats in three special elections and dismal opinion-poll ratings showed the party needed radical changes, he wrote.

Some questioned whether Miliband was the heir or assassin.

Labour's woes, far behind in opinion polls and seemingly unable to win an election anywhere, are reminiscent of the plight of the last Conservative government, more than a decade ago. That government, led by John Major, was swept away in a landslide in 1997 by Labour's Blair, whose casual dress, youthful looks and affable demeanour many see replicated by Miliband.

Though he did not mention Brown by name in his essay, Miliband offered a list of policy failings on topics ranging from crime to Iraq and the economy. Brown routinely cites all three topics as areas of government progress.

Like most other restive Labour lawmakers, Miliband has not called on Brown to quit.

The party lacks the funds for a speedy leadership contest and is reluctant to impose a second unelected leader on the country.