Babylon
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 5, 2009
- 1,332
- 82
Ed Miliband has been steadily emerging from his older brother's shadow since entering the Commons in 2005, four years after David, writes Glen Owen.
And yesterday he finally overcame the five-year age gap - and his sibling's assumption of seniority.
Born on Christmas Eve 1969, Ed is the son of the celebrated Marxist Ralph Miliband and Marion Kozak, both Polish Jewish immigrants who fled to Britain from Brussels during the Second World War, setting up
home in North London's fashionable Primrose Hill.
Ed followed David to Haverstock Comprehensive School in Chalk Farm, before doing the same subject,
philosophy, politics and economics, at the same Oxford college, Corpus Christi.
There he established a more sociable reputation than his studious sibling, reviewing films and plays on a local radio station and appearing more at ease in
the company of women.
After finishing his master's degree at the London School of Economics, Ed was briefly a TV journalist before following his brother into politics.
Critically, he made an early decision about where to sit in the Blair/Brown divide and by 1994, while David was advising Tony Blair, Ed was a researcher to disgruntled Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown.
In his recent memoirs, Blair admitted that he had made energetic efforts to pluck Ed from Brown's clutches, but he would not be swayed.
After Labour's 1997 Election victory, Ed was made one of the Chancellor's special advisers - earning him the title of 'one of the country's most powerful
unelected officials'.
As one of the few senior Labour figures liked by both warring wings of the party he was welcomed into No 10 as Brown's emissary, and dubbed 'the
ambassador from Planet F***', as the only one of the Brown team who did not swear at Blairites.
By 2004 he had become chairman of the Treasury's
Council of Economic Advisers and, at Brown's insistence, helped to organise Labour's 2005
Election campaign.
He entered the Commons as MP for Doncaster North that year. He played a key role in brokering Blair's agreement to stand down in favour of Brown, and when his boss entered No 10 in 2007 Ed won a place in the Cabinet, aged 37; firstly as Cabinet Office Minister and then as Energy Secretary.
With his Foreign Secretary brother, they were the first
siblings to sit in Cabinet together since 1938.
Friends say Ed has more of a life outside politics than his brother. While David is largely unloved among Labour MPs - he has a reputation for aloofness - Ed is seen as warm and conciliatory, with 'brains, charm and acumen'.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...vows-stand-squeezed-middle.html#ixzz10dYGWtAp
