Campaign material used by John Kerry during his failed bid to win the US presidency is being used by Labour's general election supremo.

The FT reveals that Alan Milburn gave a speech in December featuring two passages taken almost verbatim from a book by Kerry's former chief speech writer.

The book, "The Next Deal", was written in 2001 by Andrei Cherny, a special advisor to Kerry during the 2004 campaign.

Milburn acknowledged reading Cherny's work, saying: "He is a new wave Democratic thinker influencing New Labour. I thought it was a really interesting book."

Cherny said he was flattered: "I don't think there's any problem with a politician importing ideas and words and repackaging them in his own language," he said.

"If my ideas have had some influence on New Labour, then I'm very honoured."

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Times, Milburn admitted that when Tony Blair persuaded him to take the job last autumn he had mixed emotions about returning little more than a year after quitting the Cabinet to spend more time with his young family in the North East.

"In terms of the quality of my life, as a human being, being out of the Cabinet is far easier — of course it is," he said.

"Conversely, being back in means you are the centre of things, can shape it and hopefully make a difference."