Ed Miliband has been chosen as Gordon Brown’s long-term successor to lead the Labour party into the next General Election and maybe beyond. After months of hard campaigning, Ed surprised many by just getting enough votes to edge out his brother and favourite with many bookmakers, David Miliband. The news was announced at the weekend, at the start of Labour’s annual party conference. He will take over from Harriet Harman, who has been standing as acting deputy leader during the transitional period in British politics.
After four rounds of vote counting, Ed received a 1.3% bigger majority share to win the role and become the figurehead into challenging the coalition government for the next testing period that politics has to deal with, which is the inevitable spending cuts. Fellow candidates Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott were a distant third, fourth and fifth in the final votes, with the leadership already looking like it was heading to one of the Miliband brothers.
In his acceptance speech, Ed was full of praise for his brother:
“David, I love you so much.” “To the country, I know we lost touch, I know we need to change.” “Today begins a new generation for Labour.”
There is now intense speculation about the future of David Miliband political career. Many insiders are expecting him to quit frontline politics to spend more time with his family. Whatever he decides, his support for the Labour party must remain strong if the party is going to recover from the devastating blow of losing power in Downing Street when we went to vote back in May.
Can Ed Miliband turn around the fortunes of the Labour party….he certainly has a tough and challenging job on his hands…..
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