Feature: He ain’t a political heavyweight, he’s my brother
Sibling rivalries have been around for a long time. So what can David and Ed Miliband expect as the Labour leadership race intensifies?
By Samuel Dale
Noel Gallagher once whacked his brother, Liam, over the head with a cricket bat during a fight recording an Oasis album.
While the Mancunian rock stars may take brotherly rivalry to a whole new level it should be a warning for the Miliband household as the race for Labour leader hots up. With David and Ed as two, if not the two, frontrunners for the leadership, tensions will only grow in coming weeks.
From Cain and Abel to the Gallagher brothers siblings have forged an almost instinctive rivalry, and particularly in the case of brothers. And yet the sisterly companionship of Serena and Venus Williams has remained strong despite a decade competing against each other at the top of professional tennis.
For David and Ed there can only be one victor, or none, and the loser may then serve under his brother and former rival.
Both brothers say the right thing. “Brotherly love will survive because brotherly love is more important than politics,” David, 44, says. As the runaway favourite and having secured the backing of former home secretary and Labour heavyweight, Alan Johnson, he will be feeling confident. Having flirted with the leadership in 2007 and the 2008 failed coup against Gordon Brown he has long been thought of as the next Labour leader.
Ed, 40, meanwhile, does not have the mantle of ‘next Labour leader’ on his head and his bid still presents itself as a young, fresh alternative to his brother. He’s already won support from the GMB and Unison unions. Predictably he matched David’s sentiments when he said: “I think it should be a fraternal contest, and not just in terms of myself and David, but all the candidates at this election.”
The sons of Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband, the brothers were brought up in a very left-wing household that encouraged debate on political issues. The Jewish brothers attended their local north London comprehensive where they proved themselves to be incredibly bright by winning places at Oxford to read philosophy, politics and economics.
Their paths continued to take strikingly similar routes as Ed became researcher and advisor for Gordon Brown before becoming MP for Doncaster North in 2005 and joining the cabinet in 2007 as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. David was Tony Blair’s head of policy when he became leader and elected to parliament for South Shields in 2001, becoming a Cabinet minister for local government and communities in 2005.
With David working for Blair and Ed for Brown they found themselves on different sides of the bitter dispute that has divided the party since 1994. Promisingly, they appear to have survived this intense rivalry at the heart of government and remained on good terms. Furthermore, having worked in the Cabinet together, with David as foreign secretary and Ed as climate change secretary, they are still friendly. But they are about to go head to head for one of the biggest posts in politics where there can be only one winner. There is some caution to be found from other brotherly rivalries.
There is an instructive example close to home in the case of Blair’s former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, and his brother, Sir Charles, who was Margaret Thatcher’s foreign policy advisor. Working for opposing parties was an appropriate adversarial reflection of the siblings’ relationship – they did not exchange a word. As if to further assert their differences, Sir Charles pronounces his surname ‘pole’ while Jonathan opts for a more phonetic version.
The poor relations between journalists Christopher and Peter Hitchens offers another example. Christopher is a former Trotskyite, staunch atheist, heavy drinker and cheerleader for the war on terror while Peter is a conservative, teetotal Anglican who vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq. The two have endured a fractious relationship, sometimes talking and sometimes resolutely refusing to do so.
The Milibands may not share the same political differences as the Hitchens or the Powells, but they will have to endure the scrutiny and the pressure of a leadership battle in its final throes where criticism and animosity can only intensify.
One productive example could be that of footballing duo Bobby and Jack Charlton who played together, with relative harmony, for England in the 60s. With Bobby the more senior and more successful there was a strain between them but they managed to retain a degree of friendship despite professional rivalries.
The most pertinent parallel does not come from brothers, however, but from the close personal friendship of Brown and Blair before 1994. With virtually identical political standpoints the rivalry that dominated British politics for 15 years was borne purely out of personal animosity and envy. The biggest error of all was the decision of Brown not to run against Blair in the 1994 leadership election. Brown clearly believed he had personally sacrificed himself for the cause, so as not to split the vote and let in another candidate of different political persuasions.
The first lesson has been taken on board as the Milibands are running against each other, so the winner can have justifiable authority over the other. But the second lesson from the Blair-Brown rivalry is that tensions arise when the so-called junior of the pair overtakes the senior. In the case of the Milibands, David is a former foreign secretary and widely perceived future leader. Ed, on the other hand, is younger, was only climate change secretary in the last Cabinet and has only fairly recent leadership ambitions, so it seems.
So, surely the biggest test will be if Ed beats David, who will then have to serve under his little brother in a shadow Cabinet and possibly a future Cabinet. It could, of course, be Ed Balls or Andy Burnham or even Diane Abbott. Regardless, the closing stages of the contest and the increasing pressure will test the brothers’ relationship. Let’s just hope they don’t handle disagreements like the Gallagher brothers – and stay away from cricket bats.
