David Miliband Won't Serve in Brother's Shadow Cabinet

After losing the Labour Party leadership election to his brother by just over 1% of the fourth round vote, David Miliband has decided not to put his name forward for elections to Labour's frontbench. This was a case of damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he stood, the media and government would question his every word looking for a rift with brother Ed, the new leader. And if he did not stand, as he has chosen, he looks like a sore loser. In fact, Mr. Miliband made the best of a bad situation, and in the end, pundits will see that he has done more to support his brother and the Labour Party by retreating to the backbenches.

The Freudian psychodrama of two brothers fighting over leadership of the Labour Party promised to make the Blair-Brown divide look like the closest of friendships. That the nastiness of the recent campaign remained the bailiwick of their supporters suggests that the Milibands will somehow overcome this in time. They seem to have handled the succession better than Richard III and his unfortunate brothers.

"It is the right thing for now and certainly for the foreseeable future to support Ed from the backbenches," he said. In a letter to his constituency party chairman, he wrote that being part of the Shadow Cabinet would simply not work. Quite rightly, he stated, "Any new leader needs time and space to set his or her own direction, priorities and policies. I believe this will be harder if there is constant comparison with my comments and position as a member of the shadow cabinet. This is because of the simple fact that Ed is my brother who has just defeated me for the leadership. I genuinely fear perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts to find division where there is none and splits where they don't exist, all to the detriment of the party's cause. Ed needs a free hand but also an open field."

So while he spends more time with his family, his brother can get on with forming a decent opposition to the LibCon coalition without everyone asking, "But what does David think?" It is a task that will be hard enough without sibling distractions. The one benefit to having the Blairite older brother on the front benches would be to have him as Shadow Chancellor, which would have reassured the business community. Now, the job almost has to go to Ed Balls, who is well to the left of Miliband major.

Mr. D. Miliband's decision draws a line under the leadership struggle that through which Labour has suffered, quite literally, for years. Unlike Messrs. Blair and Brown, the Milibands have campaigned against one another, and a clear, if close, victory resulted. The decision is no easier for being right, but right it is.

One hopes that after recharging his "political and intellectual batteries" Mr. D. Miliband finds a way to be useful other than on the backbenches. Brussels or Harvard come to mind.

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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