After 'Bernie Winters' wins Labour Party leadership contest.....

Brothers at war: As Ed Miliband uses his maiden speech to declare Iraq invasion was wrong, David can't hide his bitterness

David snipes at Harriet Harman during brother's speech

Defeated Miliband will announce if he'll stay on today
Ed Miliband denies he has betrayed his older brother
Ed drops hint on Davids future: 'I don't think you've heard the last of him'

Ed Miliband today fuelled speculation his brother David will quit frontline politics as the issue continued to overshadow his leadership.
The new Labour leader was forced to deny he had 'betrayed' his brother and stolen his crown this morning as he desperately tried to play down the sibling rivalry.
But he said in one interview: 'I certainly don't think you've heard the last of him. I think he's going to make a big contribution in the future.'

After keeping Ed dangling for days, David must declare by this evening whether he will stand in elections for the shadow cabinet or if he will refuse to work in his brother's top team.
He is expected to reject calls from senior party figures, including former Chancellor Alistair Darling, to stay and keep the New Labour flame alive.

Tense moment: How Channel 4 screened the exchange between Mr Miliband and Miss Harman

Shadow cabinet member Peter Hain today said he believed David Miliband will not seek a post in his brother's team.
Mr Hain said: 'It looks like David is going to decide to do something else. If that is the case it will be sad for him and the party but we've got a strong team. We wish him well and we hope he'll be back at some point.'
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The former foreign secretary left Manchester, where the Labour conference is being held, last night and was said to have switched off his mobile phone.
Mr Miliband’s wife Louise is understood to be deeply upset at his treatment by his brother and the party.

His mother, Marion Kozak, is also said to have been distressed by the fractious tone of the contest.
Simmering tensions between the pair erupted yesterday when David was caught denouncing Ed’s crowd-pleasing attack on the Iraq War in his debut speech as leader.

As 40-year-old Ed attempted to turn the page on New Labour by declaring that a ‘new generation’ had taken over and insisting it had been ‘wrong to take Britain to war’, his brother sat stony-faced in the front row.
David, 45, then turned to the party’s deputy leader Harriet Harman, who was applauding enthusiastically, and sniped: ‘You voted for it, why are you clapping?’
A stunned Miss Harman hit back: ‘I’m clapping because he is the leader, and as you know, I’m supporting him.’
David was later seen shaking his head as Ed complained about the nickname said to have been ascribed to him by some of his brother’s supporters - ‘Forrest Gump’, after the dim-witted and innocent character in the Tom Hanks film.

His remarks, picked up by an ITV News camera, undermined attempts by Labour’s high command to paper over the cracks between the brothers turned leadership rivals.
They appeared to end any prospect of David, who was beaten by the narrowest of margins thanks to the votes of the trades unions, staying on.
Ed Miliband insisted today that David would be 'around in one way or another' even if he steps down from frontline politics.
'I know he will make a big contribution to politics in the future and he will have different ways of doing it, either inside the shadow cabinet or outside the shadow cabinet, but I think that is his decision,' he said.

'He has just been through a leadership contest, and a leadership contest he lost. He has got to decide what he wants to do. It is most important that he makes the right decision for himself and his family and a decision he is comfortable with.'

The new leader denied that he had 'betrayed' his older brother, and insisted David did not feel like that either.

Asked if he felt he had stolen his brother's crown, he said: 'It isn't the way I see it because I think it wasn't me, it was the Labour Party that made its decision.'
Pressure: Ed Miliband with partner Justine Thornton arriving at the conference hall yesterday
New leader: Ed Miliband waves to the conference crowd and then embraces his partner Justine Thornton

He did admit he was worried about how his victory had affected his brother. 'I worry always about the effects of any decisions I make on my family because family comes first.

'But I thought it was the right thing to do to stand in this election because I had a distinctive message. Of course I worry about him and my family but I think it was right to stand.'

He stressed that he had 'absolutely' thought through the implications of his standing on his relationship with David and insisted it was strong enough to survive.

David Miliband and wife Louise Shackelton arrive back in London last night
'The biggest obstacle for me standing in this contest was the relationship with David, because I thought long and hard about it.

'But in the end I concluded that if I had something to say which was distinctive, if I felt I would be the best leader of this party, for me not to stand in those circumstances would actually be an abdication of my responsibility, my responsibility to this party, my responsibility to this country and that is why I stood.

'My love for David is very deep, and his for me is too. It has been a difficult time, obviously, but it will withstand this.'

Mr Miliband also defended his blunt condemnation of the decision to invade Iraq, saying: 'The journey begins with humility about our record.'
He insisted he was not being an 'opportunist' by attacking Labour's record and insisted he wasn't trying to 'deny' his associations with the previous government.
It was vital to 'show we understand the reasons we lost trust and Iraq was one of those reasons. I have got to be honest about that as leader of this party,' he said.
Yesterday, the victorious younger Miliband used his conference speech to reject another of his nicknames, ‘Red Ed’, telling critics: ‘Come off it. Let’s start to have a grown-up debate in this country.’

He attempted to distance himself from his union backers by insisting that he will not back ‘waves of irresponsible strikes’ over cuts to public spending.

But he went out of his way to praise the role of unions in society and made a series of Left-wing policy pledges, apparently designed to persuade his anxious party that it has not picked the wrong brother.

He also admitted Labour had made mistakes on a series of issues, including immigration, civil liberties and the economy.
But it was the section on Iraq that prompted his defeated brother to let his mask slip after days of carefully-scripted calls for unity.
In an apparent reference to Tony Blair, Ed said some people had ‘sincerely believed that the world faced a real threat’.
But he went on: ‘I do believe that we were wrong. Wrong to take Britain to war and we need to be honest about that. Wrong because that war was not a last resort, because we did not build sufficient alliances and because we undermined the United Nations.’

David’s irritation at his brother’s stance on Iraq is just one of a series of policy splits which have opened up between Ed and party grandees. In his speech, the new leader emphasised his belief in civil liberties and distanced himself from New Labour’s tough counter-terror plans.

But that immediately put him at odds with Shadow Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who warned: ‘You do not demonstrate your commitment to civil liberties by failing to protect the most important civil liberty of all; the right to be safe on our streets.’

And while Ed backed Justice Secretary Ken Clarke’s call to spare thousands of prisoners from jail, Shadow Justice Secretary Jack Straw denounced that view as ‘madness’.


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