Balls: Milibands are briefing against each other
By politics.co.uk staff
The Miliband brothers are briefing against each other, fellow Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls has said.
In a sign that the friendly façade which has dominated the contest is starting to slip, the shadow education secretary took the high ground while suggesting the relationship between the brothers was not as unaffected by the race as they have suggested.
“Between the brothers there has been a little bit of off-the-record briefing going on,” he told Total Politics magazine.
“Hopefully, the two of them will say to their supporters to stop it. I think it is pretty unedifying.”
Ed Miliband’s supporters had been attacking David Miliband’s eccentricity while David Miliband’s supporters had been focusing on Ed Miliband’s judgement, according to Mr Balls.
“There will be no off-the-record briefings from anybody involved with me,” Mr Balls added.
Seasoned parliamentary observers will take those comments with a pinch of salt given his pivotal role in the New Labour project – one famed for its savage briefings against ministers who stepped out of line.
But tomorrow’s edition of the New Statesman also suggests that the relationship between the two men – both sons of celebrated Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband – is starting to be affected by the leadership contest.
The two now talk much less frequently than they used to, according to the report, and they exchanged few words with each other while waiting to appear at a hustings event organised by the magazine.
Speaking to the audience at the New Statesman event, David Miliband said of his brother: “If I thought Ed would be a better leader than me, I’d be running his campaign.”
