Following the leader

Pinning down the exact moment that Ed Miliband decided to run for the Labour leadership is like, as David Lloyd George said of negotiating with Éamon de Valera, trying “to pick up mercury with a fork.” Ed claims that he had not decided by the end of the day that his older brother David declared—Wednesday 12th May.

In fact, there is plenty of evidence that Ed had taken a firm decision before Gordon Brown quit as premier at 5pm on Tuesday 11th May. Earlier that day, Ed recruited key adviser Greg Beales at a meeting in No 10. On the same day, he checked with the Fabian Society whether he could use his speech the coming Saturday to announce his candidacy. On the Sunday before, he persuaded Peter Hain to back him, and by Saturday 8th, he had spoken to Hillary Benn. In short, it is most likely that Ed had decided to run in the immediate aftermath of the election, and had made up his mind, at the latest, by Saturday 8th May.

His speeches without notes at the 2008 and 2009 annual conferences, which did so much to win over the party faithful and give him a high profile, could be interpreted as Ed testing the water. Friends went out of their way to tell journalists at the 2008 conference that they should not miss Ed’s speech. During his stint at the cabinet office between 2007 and 2008, Sue Nye, former diary secretary to Gordon Brown, is believed to have raised the subject of the leadership with him more than once. By the end of 2009, Ed was seriously considering running for the leadership.

Was David aware of any of this? Friends of David say they were surprised at how indifferent he was to the rise and rise of his younger brother. “He didn’t see him as a threat,” says one. “Until it was too late.”

As with so much to do with the brothers, there are two opposing accounts of one of the few conversations they had about the leadership, at the start of December 2009. Ed claims they discussed whether David should take the job of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs. He tells friends he felt it was right to indicate to David that he “might” run for the leadership. He claims that David’s reaction was merely: “Fine, what do you think about the Europe job?”

But the timeline suggests otherwise; after all, David had already publicly declined the job on 11th November and, by 19th November, Catherine Ashton had been appointed as the new EU High Representative. Instead, a close friend of David’s says he discussed with Ed the idea of moving against Brown, and that it was only after Ed showed resistance to such an idea, that David became aware that his brother was considering a leadership run.

By 2010, the leadership issue was at the forefront of Ed’s mind. One senior MP involved in Ed’s campaign says he was alerted as early as January that Ed was planning to run. But it was in the last week of February 2010 that one of the most important discussions concerning Ed’s leadership took place. The former Labour leader, Neil Kinnock had requested a “short political chat” with Ed.

“I told him that if we lose, given the condition we are in, he should run for leader,” Kinnock says. “He told me he had thought about it a lot. The basic question for him was ‘When David runs, will I?’ I replied by imploring him to do it for the party. Think of the party, not David…”

In the end, Ed put party before family—and himself before his brother. Did he underestimate the risks to his family relations? The day after Ed stood, Sue Nye held a post-election party. Anji Hunter, the Blair aide approached Ed. She told him to look out for his family, especially his mother, because the press would be all over that element to the contest. According to one guest, Ed appeared taken aback, as if he had not considered this. “Good point,” he said.

The truth is that Ed Miliband, who doesn’t like the word “ruthless,” let nothing, including his immediate family, get in the way of his determination to be leader.

Tensions between Ed and David erupted in public—most notably, towards the end of the summer. In a speech at the King Solomon academy school in north London on 25th August, David said: “There is no future for Labour in the comfortable but deadening policies of the past. And there is no future in a politics based on a tactical, patchwork approach to building electoral support.” In an article in The Times to coincide with the speech, he went further, describing the party’s comfort zone, dismissively, as “big in heart but essentially naive, well-meaning but behind the times.” Ed’s name was not mentioned, yet privately he was furious. He rang a friendly journalist that afternoon. “What do people think of this ‘comfort zone’ stuff?” The journalist equivocated, suggesting that it might not be an attack on him. “It is an attack,” Ed replied coldly. “It is an attack.”

After the leadership result, David’s instinct was to get out of it all. His wife Louise was determined that he should do so. It would be damaging to both Ed and him for his every move to be monitored by the media for signs of disloyalty. He informed Ed that he was set to stand down. Reflecting his unwillingness to acknowledge the rift between them, Ed urged him to reconsider; he had wanted David as his shadow chancellor. But it was to no avail.

As one senior former cabinet minister who is close to David observes: “I don’t understand the dynamics between the two of them. Have you met anyone who can properly explain it to you? I just simply don’t understand it.” Almost everyone interviewed for this book agrees that among Ed’s talents is his ability to empathise. Curiously, this does not seem to extend to his own brother.

David has taken on a range of roles: teaching at Haverstock School in north London, where he was once a pupil; a non-executive position at Sunderland FC. Hundreds attend his talks, especially students and in May he attracted some 300 at Sussex University. But he remains “trapped,” unable to comment on politics. He cuts a lonely figure on the fifth floor of Portcullis House in Westminster where his office is situated next to that of his old campaign chief Douglas Alexander. Asked how he is, David is prone to pulling a face and repeating the question. Ed and his advisers have approached the elder brother to ask him to “come back.” The likelihood remains that he never will under Ed. The elder Miliband faces a fundamental question about his future: whether to hold out in the Commons, or quit politics for good.

Ed must apply the same sense of urgency to the job of party leader that he did to his leadership campaign. Given the lasting distrust between his own circle and that around David, Ed must do everything he can to make peace with his brother, who secured more votes than him among party members and MPs. Only then will the Labour party fully be at peace with itself and only then can Ed go on and win the next general election.