After a nail-biting finale, hanover provides a view from the conference floor and some thoughts about what’s next for David Miliband / Read more
labour leadership result
With the announcement that Ed Miliband is to be the leader of the Labour Party, the dominant question in the minds of many is who will be his Shadow Chancellor and will this decision be an olive branch to the party’s center, and the 49.3% of the party who would have liked to see his brother win.
The obvious choice would be to appoint his defeated brother, the former Foreign Secretary and ‘Blairite’ heavy weight. But will David, reeling from a photo finish defeat in a race he was sure he’d win, accept the offer, and let a second generation of Labour politics sit in the shadow of party leader-chancellor rivalry?
Perhaps Ed balls, the attack dog of the Labour front bench, could prove a capable alternative to George Osborne. Yet his outspoken opposition to deficit reduction is unlikely to endear him to either the center of the party or the country. Will his wife Yvette Cooper MP, a certainty for a shadow cabinet post, be deemed a more suitable alternative?
Ed’s first priority is of course to unify his fractured party. His actions over the coming weeks, and crucially his response to the shadow cabinet elections, will demonstrate if he is indeed up to the task. / Read more