Five years later, that victory has turned bitter. The Miliband family has suffered as well: A gulf as wide as the Atlantic Ocean has opened between the once-close brothers, with David, 49, abandoning politics and moving to self-imposed exile in New York. John Rentoul, author of a biography about former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and a columnist at the Independent on Sunday, believes the leadership contest has split the brothers, perhaps forever.
I do not see how David could ever forgive his brother for what he did. Yet the last few days have seen rumblings that David might return to Britain to jumpstart his political career and try once more to become Labour party leader after Ed resigned the post Friday. Rowling, who admitted she was obsessing about David.
The obsession goes like this: Ed, for all his earnestness, proved a dismal campaigner, and many believe David would have been far more formidable. When Labour came to power, Ed was pitched into the never-ending turf wars between the Treasury and Downing Street, coming to be seen as one of Mr Brown's key backroom allies.
He gained a reputation as something of a diplomat, whose skill at defusing rows was reportedly much in demand in the escalating battle between Brownites and Blairites. It is said that Ed would often be despatched from the Brown camp to make peace with Downing Street, where David worked as head of Blair's policy unit.
But he baulks at the usual description of himself as a "Brownite", claiming to be one of the least "tribal" of MPs.
In , he spent a year's sabbatical at Harvard University, to study and lecture at Harvard's Centre for European Studies, before becoming an MP for the safe seat of Doncaster North in He lives in a fashionable North London district close to where he grew up, with barrister wife Justine Thornton and their two young sons Daniel and Samuel.
The couple, who had lived together for several years, got married in May Support from the trade unions proved decisive in Ed Miliband's Labour leadership victory, and he has sought to move the party on from the New Labour era, projecting a more left wing message on tax and inequality. He has also distanced himself from the Iraq War, calling the invasion a "tragic error" and saying he would have voted to give weapons inspectors more time had he been an MP at the time.
His relationship with the New Labour establishment - most of whom backed David for the leadership - has been prickly at times, although Tony Blair buried the hatchet by giving a supportive speech during the general election campaign. But although the party has avoided the psychodramas and splits some had predicted after his election, Mr Miliband has had a far from easy ride as Labour leader. He was ridiculed from the beginning by the media for his voice and appearance, with cartoonists portraying him as Wallace, from the Wallace and Gromit animations.
The mockery reached its zenith with a photograph of Mr Miliband struggling to eat a bacon sandwich. But there was also internal Labour criticism that he lacked the leadership skills to take the party back into power and that his focus on issues such as zero-hours contracts and taxing the rich was too narrow. He was not reaching out to the middle-income, southern England voters Tony Blair had gathered up to win three general elections. There were some unforced errors, such as forgetting to mention the deficit in his party conference speech and having to apologise for a grinning snap of him promoting the Sun newspaper.
But he has endured the most sustained campaign of press criticism levelled at a Labour leader since the days of Neil Kinnock. Mr Miliband has made much of the way that he has stood up to vested interests - starting with Rupert Murdoch, over phone hacking, and then the energy companies, when he announced a planned price freeze. But his personal poll ratings have been among the lowest of any Labour leader, well below that of the party itself. He sought to do the only thing he could to counter the barrage of criticism about his style - attempt to make a virtue of it.
Here's the thing: I believe that people would quite like somebody to stand up and say there is more to politics than the photo-op. Keep abreast of significant corporate, financial and political developments around the world. Stay informed and spot emerging risks and opportunities with independent global reporting, expert commentary and analysis you can trust. Sign in. Accessibility help Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer.
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Choose your subscription. We are not looking to a period where [David] emerges as another Miliband interpretation. So was it all worth it?
The political fallout? The seemingly permanent rupture in the once-close Miliband clan? Consider the verdict of their mother. A few weeks before the result of the Labour leadership contest was announced in September , Marion bumped into an old family friend on a trip to New York. This article is more than 6 years old.
Mehdi Hasan.
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