QUENTIN LETTS: From the slavery row to the EU, our Mr Bean of a Foreign Secretary is a national liability

Through the internet a couple of days ago, like a signal from another galaxy, there crackled a social-media message from the guiding force of our new government. The fuzziness eventually cleared to show a big-fringed, oblong head with wonky mouth, rings under its eyes and a spittle-fluffed voice. Earthlings of Britain, behold your overlord, Ed Miliband. Foreign Secretary Miliband had taken to X to say we should grovel for forgiveness for transatlantic slavery.

The fact that the Royal Navy heroically prevented that wicked trade in the 19th century went unmentioned by Red Ed. For him, slavery was 'a horrific chapter in our history' and we should have 'a formal structured dialogue' with people in the Caribbean and the United Kingdom who are allegedly still affected by slavery. He added: 'We are self-confident enough to have this conversation.' Well, he certainly is. Wild-eyed certitude geysers out of almost every orifice.

Look at the egomaniacal video he shot at the World Bank meeting in Thailand last week. Lecturing viewers about the importance of 'multilateralism' (i.e. the surrender of yet more national sovereignty), he waggled his hips, stuck a hand in his pocket and threw an umbrella about the place as if he was Gene Kelly in Singin' In The Rain. This prize noodle Miliband is on a deranged power kick, and it's causing havoc with the government. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband had taken to X to say we should grovel for forgiveness for transatlantic slavery, writes Quentin Letts The King was also at the Commonwealth summit, his royal dignity drenched by a cloudburst and tarnished by a slavery-reparations squabble his ministers had made worse At the Commonwealth meeting in Antigua and Barbuda, our nominal head of government, Andy Burnham, was muckin' about in cricket whites, slipping on a wet wicket and being run out for a duck.

The King was also at the Commonwealth summit, his royal dignity drenched by a cloudburst and tarnished by a slavery-reparations squabble his ministers had made worse. Shortly before flying to the summit, Mr Burnham wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper which said he was 'open to' calls for a formal slavery apology. In an instant the King's Caribbean tour, carefully planned to be forward-looking and upbeat, was wrecked. The Commonwealth shindig's political focus became historic and grievance-focused.

If HM seemed in a bate about that rainstorm it may simply have been a deeper, unvoiceable exasperation at his PM's ineptitude. Was Mr Burnham too dim to understand the likely consequences of his Guardian article ? Or was he merely jumping to strings operated by his Foreign Secretary's long, bony fingers? Back in July, when Eyelashes Andy asked him to move to the Foreign Office, some at Westminster hoped it could start the decline of Red Ed.

At the Energy department, his hot-to-trot pursuit of Net Zero had damaged not only the economy but also Labour's popularity with Red Wall voters. Friends of Sir Keir Starmer had urged him to move Miliband after his first year in office. Sir Keir, who became an MP only in 2015, fatally hesitated. It is said Mr Miliband was the person who persuaded lawyer Sir Keir to stand for parliament. Even when he became PM, Sir Keir seemed awed by the man who led Labour to election defeat nearly a decade earlier.

In the Commons one day last year, I saw them by the Speaker's chair. Mr Miliband had his palm on Sir Keir's shoulder. The body language was unmistakable: I Own You. Is something similar now happening to anything-for-a-quiet-life Burnham? The theory that foreign affairs would keep Mr Miliband out of mischief looks misplaced. One of his first moves as Foreign Secretary was to impose sanctions on the West Bank – a decision that, from his highly personal speech in parliament when it was announced, was very much Mr Miliband's. The move may have helped Labour to lure floating voters from the Greens and Gaza independents – and just in time for last month's Holborn and St Pancras by-election – but it has wrecked diplomatic relations between London and Jerusalem.

The Israeli government retaliated by supporting Argentina's claims to the Falkland Islands. The White House, already suspicious of Mr Miliband for pressuring Sir Keir to deny the US Air Force use of its British bases for attacks on Iran, was also appalled. Geopolitics was being put second to by-election pressures and student-union-style posturing. Mr Miliband has also resuscitated the heinously unpopular Chagos Isles giveaway. Another area where his genius touch can be detected is on Europe.

Mr Burnham, who in June promised voters in Makerfield that he would not reopen the Brexit wounds, has got himself into a muddle. One day his government signals a desire to rejoin the EU and talks of reverting to freedom of movement that would allow millions to come here; the next, Eyelashes realises the Foreign Office (prop: E. Miliband) has galloped ahead of Labour's working-class voters, so he tries to claim nothing has yet been decided.

King Charles meets Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband as he arrives at Cheddi Jagan International Airport, in Georgetown, at the start of the royal visit to Guyana on October 29 Who benefits from this disarray? Certainly not Burnham. It makes him look a PM who is not in control of policy detail (which he plainly is not). But Ed Miliband, who does and always has understood small-print, even if he reaches crazy conclusions, can assume the mantle of casual seniority.

He can, in a sense, place a reassuring hand on another prime minister's shoulder and take ownership of him. This is great for Ed Miliband's ego, and terrible for the country. On Europe and slavery (the latter being an issue that almost no one mentioned until Western handwringers, including that fool Theresa May, started chewing on it some 15 years ago) there is a common thread: lack of belief in Britain. The EU Rejoiners are convinced our country can not succeed unless it hurries back to an undemocratic, economically stagnant, socially combustible bloc.

The slavery lobbyists believe Britain was uniquely responsible for the transatlantic slave trade. The true villains included African rulers, some of whose descendants now have the damn cheek to demand hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation from us – even though we stopped their trade. What sort of anti-patriot falls for such demands? What sort of Britain-basher thinks we should crawl back to Brussels when we had a referendum decision in 2016 to leave the EU?

What sort of woodworm gnaws at his own culture's proud naval history and Christian values – which so informed Britain's opposition to slavery – and thinks they are trumped by the demands of a few on-the-make Caribbean politicians? And even while they are mistreating our beloved King, making him stand in a tropical deluge without a brolly, and peck-peck-pecking him for more of our shrivelling British pounds, what sort of Foreign Secretary tosses them another £40million, ostensibly to help their eco-projects but more obviously to satisfy his own climate-change obsessions?

All while the supposed Prime Minister is flat on his backside on a cricket pitch, cackling with laughter at his maladroitness. People who fly too close to Ed Miliband don't fare well. His older brother David has never been the same man since Ed defeated him for the Labour leadership in 2010. In 2015, Ed landed his party with the disaster of Jeremy Corbyn. When a too-trusting Sir Keir Starmer needed his support this summer, supposed ally Ed turned feral and did him in.

Andy Burnham may not be the brightest, but surely even he can see that this Mr Bean of a Foreign Secretary is, in addition to being a prize noodle, a national liability. A King's speech that stretched the royal diplomatic tightrope: Analysis by REBECCA ENGLISH READ MORE: Britain had a leading role in ending the slave trade, says Charles: King hails Royal Navy's heroics after PM opened door to apology for slavery