I think you are being a bit hard on David Miliband. In the first quotation he is clearly talking about thoroughly considered and formally adopted policy. In the second, he is talking about tactics and political culture. So, I don’t see there is necessarily a conflict between the two.

It certainly would not do Labour any favours in terms of public credibility if it ditched large parts of it’s manifesto within a few months of the election, casually saying “that was then; this is now” in areas where the facts/situation haven’t altered significantly.

I’m sorry that I didn’t realise sooner that we were useless.
Not that we were.

I’m beginning to shift my support to him from Balls!

I don’t see why Miliband feels he has to stand by everything in Labour’s manifesto. Firstly, the manifesto wasn’t exactly a great success so it’s hardly unreasonable to consider a change of direction, and secondly campaigning on the manifesto doesn’t mean you agree with every part of it – you accept collective responsibility and support the package as a whole. That doesn’t apply now the election is over and Labour is in opposition.

Short answer, no.

As Flowerpower poins out, in the first quote he’s specifically talking about the manifesto. The second quote is more about style and broad direction.

What he seems to be saying in quote 1 is that having been responsible collectively as part of Cabinet for the manifesto, he’s not going to start pretending a few weeks later that it’s nothing to do with him. Which is why, even though I think Ed Balls is doing a good job in giving Michael Gove a deserved pasting, I’m not going to back Ed Balls for leader.

(I’m not backing DM, either, but at least he should be treated fairly).

Heh nice bit of swift boating Sunny on behalf of your preferred candidate Ed Miliband! Couldn’t you find glaring inconsistencies in his campaign if you looked?

Didn’t he write the last Labour manifesto and is now telling people Labour should move on from the past? Doesn’t that mean they [Labour] should move on from his leadership candidacy to a serious candidate who can actually lead the party through renewal to governance?

“He can’t be the candidate who says that nothing was seriously wrong with the last 13 years at one event, and then later say the party had lost its way. ”

You can, its called triangulation and it was extremely succesful for Clinton and Blair.