Member News
By Sam Macrory - 30th September 2010
Is that really it?
Has the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader placed a permanent full stop on the political career of his elder brother David, for three years the Labour Party's heir apparent?
Political obituaries for the elder Miliband have already been published following his decision to quit frontline politics, with bookmakers offering short odds on him leaving Parliament at the next election.
Meanwhile pundits are speculating as to which plum foreign job – the post of British ambassador to the US will soon become available – will head Miliband's way as he exits domestic politics.
His reasoning for stepping away, to give his brother space to shape his leadership, has widely been perceived as thoughtful self-sacrifice rather than petulant sour grapes, but when the fall-out of the shock result is over, the older brother might reflect that time is firmly on his side.
He has not ruled out a return to the frontbench, telling the BBC’s Nick Robinson yesterday that he would "always make the decision I think is right for the party and the country" and underlining the need to focus on 2015 and then 2020.
At the 2015 next election, when David Miliband will be 49, Ed Miliband will be judged at the polls.
He spoke of his determination to make Labour electable by the next general election, but with the party having lost five million votes since its landslide win in 1997, his task is a mammoth one.
It is far too early to predict the standing of the coalition government in 2015, but should its tough approach to slashing the deficit be deemed a success by the electorate – with the tough medicine of spending cuts replaced by the delivery of tax cuts towards the end of this Parliament – then Labour will struggle to make its case heard.
William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, and Michael Howard, the Conservative party's leaders from 1997 to 2005, will testify how hard it is to win the electorate's ear when the party in power is considered to be responsible for an economy in rude health.
The new leader can talk of moving on from Iraq and the need to exorcise the party's ghosts, but in 2015 the main vote winner will be the economy.
Should Labour fail to win the next general election, then those MPs who voted for David only to see Ed scrape over the line with union help will grumble that the wrong brother was elected, echoing the Conservative party's 2001 election of the grass roots cheerleading Iain Duncan Smith above the broader appeal of either Ken Clarke or Michael Portillo.
Milband minor's wide backing from the unions, as well as the attempt to characterise him as the dangerous left-leaning Red Ed, will also be brought into harsh light.
The new leader has warned against "waves of irresponsible strikes", but even support of the responsible ones is hardly likely to appeal to the election-deciding voters of Middle England.
And when Neil Kinnock, a man remembered for leading Labour to two election defeats is heard agreeing, upon Ed's election, that "we've got our party back", defeat in five years' time could well see David's backers demand that Ed and the new generation hand it back to those in the party more capable of winning elections.
From the safety of the backbenches, disassociated with a failed opposition, and - a process which already appears to have begun - having grown in popularity, the elder brother may yet find the party clamouring for his return.
Perhaps one of the 2010 generation of Labour MPs will emerge, as David Cameron and Nick Clegg both did after one Parliament, as the person most likely to lead their party.
But if they don't, and the party is prepared to elect another, quite distinct, Miliband, then David will be young enough to be a viable option.
Labour has a difficult term in opposition ahead. David might soon reflect that he is best off out of it.
How William Hague, who struggled to resurrect the Conservative party after its 1997 defeat, would have preferred to have waited his turn and returned as the older and wiser politician he appears to be today.
Anthony Eden, for so long the heir apparent to Winston Churchill, was made to wait beyond his prime.
As Harold Macmillan memorably recalled, the problem with Eden was that he had been bred to win the Derby in 1938, but hadn't been let out of his stall until 1955.
For so long the heir apparent, Eden's moment had passed by the time he succeeded Winston Churchill.
For David Miliband, watching on from the safety of the stable, the going may be better in a few years' time.
Sam Macrory is features editor of The House Magazine.
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.