The New Lib Dem MP Who Got A "Well Done" Text From Sue Gray

Before running for Parliament, Calum Miller had a quick chat with his old boss Nick Clegg – but he won’t divulge the content of the former party leader’s advice.

“It wasn't a sort of sponsorship arrangement,” the new Liberal Democrat MP insists. “He was just enthusiastic and encouraging about me thinking about doing it.”

Miller has lived in the area with his family – wife, Sophie, and four kids – since he joined his old job as chief operating officer and senior fellow in public management at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.

He organises to meet in the The Bell pub, near the stunning Islip village. His time in politics has made him aware of the importance of image and good pictures – even if he’s not yet comfortable with being the focus of them.

“Two of the boys I coach at rugby work on a farm nearby and knowing my luck they’ll come round the corner any minute,” Miller says self-consciously.

Before his university job, he spent 13 years working at various levels of the civil service, from then-cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell to Clegg’s private secretary during his time as deputy prime minister (the first minister he directly worked for), spanning Labour, Tory and Lib Dem governments. It has left him with friends and former colleagues across the political spectrum.

Sue Gray, now Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, was once Miller’s direct line manager in the Cabinet Office. She texted to congratulate him on becoming an MP: “She definitely didn't get in touch beforehand to wish me well against the Labour candidate. But she did say ‘well done’ afterwards.”

Rupert Harrison, former George Osborne adviser during his time in the Treasury, was Miller’s main opposition in the constituency, alongside Labour’s candidate Veronica Oakeshott, who also happens to be the sister of Isabel Oakeshott, journalist and partner of Reform UK leader Richard Tice.

Miller had worked alongside Harrison during the coalition: “We were civil to one another, but we didn't go out for a drink afterwards and try to sort out government policy.”

Despite working at the heart of government, being in the civil service there was a need to be impartial, and it was Miller’s least political period of life.

An only child, his mother was a social work manager and his father was, for a period, general secretary of the Scottish Liberal Democrats before he trained as a Church of Scotland minister. Miller still has a soft Scottish accent.

“Most of us spend our lives trying to get away from our parents' beliefs and persuade ourselves that we have independent thought and all of that. But you can't grow up in a household where politics and social life is part of the currency of conversation and not be influenced by it.”

Miller, who studied PPE at Oxford, speaks of a “love of politics from a young age”. He originally secured a place to read English – having applied for English and drama at other universities following some successful school plays, plus a stint of starring in advertisements, including for the Scottish milk board aged nine – but realised his interests lay more in politics.

He did not seek to join the Oxford Union, however. “There's quite a clear divide between folk who found the union exciting and fun, and enjoyed the chance to dress up and pretend to be politicians, and those who just got involved in their junior common room,” which Miller did.

A member of the Liberal Democrats at university, he was first attracted to the party under Paddy Ashdown’s leadership. “My brand of liberalism is one that blends a strong sense of commitment to the community with a respect for individualism and individual liberty,” says Miller.

It was after a few years working at the Blavatnik Institute that he rejoined the party, having resigned upon joining the civil service, and began getting involved locally. “My joke was that during Covid some people took up sourdough baking, and I foolishly decided to run for county council so, you know, everyone has their own quirks!”

But Miller claims he still wasn’t planning on becoming an MP. It was an “increasing realisation” around localism that, somewhat paradoxically, spurred him on to national politics.

I saw how some of the policies I'd been involved in in government were actually felt more locally, especially outside the capital

“I saw how some of the policies I'd been involved in in government were actually felt more locally, especially outside the capital, and a strong feeling that there were ways in which that could be done better, using better communication with communities, engaging them on decision making and getting better outcomes as a result,” he says.

“It is unfashionable these days, but the European principle of subsidiarity seems to me the right one. The basic thought would be that things should be done as locally as possible, unless there's a good reason they should be done more nationally.”

The best way, Miller claims, to tackle the “democratic deficit” is by giving people “more, rather than less, say in what's happening locally”.

As a witness to the Coalition government and the Liberal Democrats’ foray into power, “there's a limit to what I can talk about” having been a government official, he says. There are obvious lessons learnt, he continues, but Miller defends the decision to have gone into partnership with the Conservatives.

“I personally think all political parties should want to exercise influence over government and outcomes – clearly being in government is the best possible way of doing that,” he explains. “There were aspects of it that I think were genuinely positive and stable for the country, but clearly at an electoral level it was pretty damaging.”

Tuition fees continue to haunt the party. The signed NUS pledge was something Miller was never consulted on but has, he says, “really led to the perception that people have gone back on their word”.

We meet in his constituency just after the series of riots that ravaged the UK over the summer. A dialogue is needed to understand why some might find themselves attracted to the arguments of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson.

“Immigration is the obvious driver for a lot of this mobilisation and there is a need to really get into that conversation,” Miller says.

“We need to acknowledge that there are pressures in public services across the board and there may well be instances, pockets of the country, where there have been significant inflows of migrants where there hasn't been adequate funding following that. And therefore there is a genuine and legitimate perception that public services are under pressure because of it.”

In a tweet from 2017, responding to an interview with US alt-right leader Richard Spencer, Miller said that alt-right is better described as fascist. Does that go for the far-right partaking in the riots? “It was probably an excessive generalisation to describe all members of the alt-right community as fascist,” he says now.

I've been involved in lots of institutions and, in nearly all of them, I've tried to change them

Miller sees an important distinction in challenging and calling out the ideology and leaders that perpetuate it versus those who might participate in, or indeed vote for, people he considers to be populist.

Making people aware of the stats is key, he believes. “The most recent ONS annual immigrant data has Indians and Nigerians as the largest two ethnic groups coming to the country. But it then goes on to say the principal reason for coming to the country was to work in health and social care sector.”

There are lines he draws in terms of engagement, however, especially where “another political leader of whatever seniority is actively endorsing the views of racist organisations”. After President Trump shared videos posted by far-right group Britain First in 2017, Miller tweeted then attorney general Jeremy Wright asking whether he would let the US president be charged during his state visit to the UK with incitement to religious hatred.

“The leader of another country tweeting from a pretty vile organisation is a direct example of interference in our politics... so I think there's a real issue there,” Miller explains. Were Trump to be re-elected and repeat such online activity, would Miller respond in the same way?

“A good liberal principle is that no one is above the law. Whether you're the president of the United States, or the attorney general themselves, or the prime minister of this country, if you do things that contravene the law, then it's perfectly right that it should be examined.”

At the new Parliament’s opening PMQs, Miller became the first MP to ask the Prime Minister a question. “One of my colleagues, very sweetly, turned to me just beforehand and said: ‘I'm really nervous for you!’ Which didn’t exactly help,” he recalls.

The question was about Thames Water, calling for ​​Ofwat to be replaced by a new regulator to clamp down on firms' sewage dumping.

“I thought hard about what was the single issue that had come up on the doorstep across my constituency throughout the campaign, and it was absolute water quality.”

Miller is hoping the government will work cross-party to resolve mismanagement by water companies. It seems to be part of a desire for collaboration and community that is at the core of his liberal politics.

A member of both the Church of England and the Church of Scotland – “an unusual combination,” he jokes – Miller seems to crave congregation. “The community of the church, the idea of a congregation, a group of people who care about something, that's part of my upbringing and part of who I am today.”

Community and institutions “matter quite a lot to me”, Miller says. “Institutions are expressions of how communities do things together but the critical thing that maybe distinguishes my outlook from, as I say, traditional conservatives, is I've been involved in lots of institutions and, in nearly all of them, I've tried to change them.”

He is now a member of one of the country’s oldest institutions – surely his best opportunity yet to make far-reaching changes.

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