Perhaps his agenda is best described less as Milibandite than neo-Brownite. Many on the left want to see signs that Labour 's foreign policy is changing and will be different. Miliband's vision - which describes a world of injustice where many of the solutions come from our increasing interconnectedness and through greater individual engagement - is explicitly built on some of the Chancellor 's own moral positions. For anyone worried that the new cabinet lacks big beasts, Miliband is the obvious riposte. Just off the evening Eurostar from Brussels, he is energetic and - far from being depressed by the Government's difficult 'Black November ' - he is pugnacious.

"We bear collective responsibility for the position of the Government at the end of 2007 and we bear collective responsibility for improving it in 2008. There's an obvious media and Tory narrative, which is: 'they've run out of steam, they're divided amongst themselves, and they've lost the will to fight'. Now, none of those things are true and we have got to show that 2008 is not going to be a year where we curl up in a ball and say 'well it's been nice to be in government for ten years and let's be proud of what we've done but satisfied with what we've done'. Wrong! This is precisely the time to say 'we are very proud of the things that have gone right, we're determined to do better on the things that haven't gone as well as we wanted'. We've got the energy that comes from looking at the condition of the country and feeling like we've got something to offer to it to make a difference."

Miliband says that the foreign policy challenges that the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook faced when Labour came to power 1997 seem are a world away from those he faces today, but ethics nevertheless seem central: "Gordon said 'over there is now in here' and so a world where we don't see beyond our borders is wrong - people know that in areas like terrorism and climate change, our moral compass has got to be brought to bear abroad as well as at home. And part of my job is to make sure that foreign policy does come back home, because foreign policy has changed."

In particular, he sees two new big changes emerging out of the Blair decade. Firstly, the international community is increasingly interconnected - partly because of the pace of technological change over the last ten years. The effect that this is having on participation and the involvement of individuals is dramatic: "I think the contours of the post- cold war world are much clearer than they were then. They are about interdependence, which I think was an idea which was around in 1997, but they are also about a smaller world in which connections are faster and more dramatic."

Secondly, 'Modern insecurity' is a phrase he uses a number of times to describe the effect that global change is having on the individual citizen and on the political system as a whole. This reading allows him to wrap up quite a range of policy issues. 'Modern insecurity' is, he says, about religious extremism and terrorism, nuclear proliferation - "linked sometimes to terrorism" - conflict, inequality and climate change. It is also "about a relationship between nation states and international institutions that is out of kilter."

This analysis, combined with the lessons that he draws about what we do about insecurity, shows him at his most neo-Brownite. He has a new model of intervention. It is a model which redefines "the nature of how economic, social, political and military strategy fit together to promote prosperity and security in the wider world, which you have to do if you want to promote prosperity and security for yourself."

It is a model which allows him to look forward. He rejects the call in this issue of the Fabian Review for a full public inquiry into the conflict in Iraq once the troops are home: "I am obsessed with the next five years in Iraq, not the last five years in Iraq. And I think that the best 'inquiry' is putting the best brains to think about how to make sure the next five years in Iraq get that combination of political reconciliation, economic reconstruction and security improvement that are so essential."

In diplomacy and foreign policy, symbolism is particularly important and has particular resonance for Labour. One of the lessons Labour has taken from the last decade - and especially the last six years - of foreign policy is that getting the narrative or even your metaphors wrong can sometimes become a path to pursuing the wrong policy.

Tony Blair made frequent use of the idea of Britain acting as a 'bridge' between America and Europe. Indeed this symbol came to represent the dominant theme of post-911 policy - with the 'bridge' sometimes appearing to consist solely of Blair himself shuttling between Washington and European leaders trying to broker deals. The 'bridge', it is argued, got us the first UN resolution on Iraq. In the end, it failed to bridge anything at all on military action in Iraq.

In Bournemouth in September. Miliband's Conference speech was short and focused almost exclusively on the symbolism, recanting the old metaphors, and making clear that Britain was a part of Europe, while America was our most important bilateral ally: "Both Europe and America are less popular now than ten years ago. It's not enough to talk about a bridge." He used the phrase 'move on' repeatedly. The lesson, he said, was that "it is not enough to have good intentions".

When asked whether this is really such a different vision, the Foreign Secretary said that, given Britain's rich networks, we should be wary of being too simplistic: "I mean - I made the speeches about Britain as a bridge. But actually I think that was wrong for two reasons. One - it presumed that other European Countries wouldn't have a relationship with America, when in fact it's good if they do. And secondly, it slightly forgot about the rest of the world."

So was it wrong at the time, or have things changed? "No, I think… Again I think it's new circumstances and new lessons… There is a great liberal internationalist project and that is to build rules-based institutions that provide order in a potentially chaotic world. And I think that binds together people on both sides of the Atlantic. It's a project that's in the interests of the strong as well as the weak. It's a project that I think is very necessary and my pitch about Britain is it's less 'bridge' and more 'global hub'."

The 'great liberal internationalist project' as a sort of web of contacts and compacts stretching from Bulgaria to California gives a new theme to foreign policy and probably reflects Britain's place in the world more realistically. This is a vision where our interconnectedness - not new in itself , but much stronger - requires a more 'personalised' link to empower individual citizens. Politically, it also gives recognition to Labour's unease over, for example, the huge marches through London and other cities in the spring before the Iraq war:

"The idea that Britain has a unique set of networks into which we can plug our values and our ideas is a big thing for us. If you care about terrorism or climate change or even winning peace in Afghanistan, you've got to win over hearts and minds at home and abroad."

And is that why some of the rhetoric and tone around the 'war on terror ' has also changed? "Gordon has said you've got to see this in terms of a long-term engagement. And I think that's right. He talks about the parallels with the cold war. I think that umm… [long pause] sometimes what you say isn't what's heard."

Perhaps most importantly, his new model defines Europe as being at the heart of the power to intervene: "I've just come back from Europe, from the European Council, where we' ve discussed Kosovo, Iran, and Salam Fayed made a presentation on the middle-east peace process - it's a Europe that's going beyond institutional navel gazing and onto the big sources of insecurity, which are beyond its borders."

It seems likely, therefore, that this will be the backdrop for Gordon Brown and his Foreign Secretary when they make what is necessarily a very political choice on Europe. And they must make it soon: does the Government positively campaign for Europe or find ways to be grudging about every step forward? There are political dangers with either choice. David Cameron has the same decision to make.

Miliband denies - somewhat surprisingly - that the Eurosceptics have dominated the debate ever since Maastricht, "I think the European Union is less popular - which is not the same thing as Euroscepticism dominating the debate. The European Union has been dogged for six or seven years

by institutional wrangling. And if you want to have a recipe to put people off an institution, you spend your time in institutional navel gazing that doesn't get anywhere."

However, he does appear keen to take the positive fight to the Tories: "Europe is seen as a tactical problem for us but it's a strategic problem for the Tories. Right? Our position on Europe is a strategic advantage for us even if there are tactical challenges that arise and that's because once you accept that climate change, migration, terrorism, are big sources of insecurity, you have to find international ways of dealing with them. You can't tackle climate change if you're a Eurosceptic."

Over the last decade, this has not been a Government to shy away from dramatic internal struggles. David Miliband is building a formidable power base in the Foreign Office, with talented advisors and surefooted political strategy. For the moment - perhaps forever - he is keeping his powder dry and playing a key part in Gordon Brown's fight back. "The challenge that Gordon put to us to combine vision and values in October has not been changed since then - it's been dramatised since then. And the same challenge has got to be applied to foreign policy as well as domestic policy. We've got the idealism; we haven't got the divisions. We've got the energy to carry on making a difference. And we've got the fight for it - we're up for it. So there!"