Two brothers battling for the leadershhip of Britain’s Labour Party will find out today which of them will be given the task of guiding the centre-left party back into government.

The field of five candidates to lead the party of former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown has come down to a straight fight between David and Ed Miliband, pitched firmly in the rival Blair and Brown camps.

Dumped out of office in May after 13 years in power, Labour’s choice of leader will determine whether the party takes a more centrist or left-wing approach to tackling the Conservative-Liberal Democrat governing coalition.

Former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, a 45-year-old protege of Mr Blair, is the favourite to win the ballot of Labour lawmakers, party members and trade unionists when the result is announced today.

His more left-leaning brother Ed, 40, the former energy and climate change minister and part of Mr Brown’s inner circle, is considered his closest challenger.

Tim Horton, research director of the socialist Fabian Society think-tank, said the Milibands do not have the bitter rivalry that marked the Blair-Brown relationship.

“They don’t quite embody their former masters,” he said.

“Both of them are collegiate politicans and I don’t think either of them would have a problem serving under the leadership of their brother.

The new leader must give voters a credible alternative to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, whose coalition government of former political foes emerged after Labour lost its majority at the general election in May.

The coalition has pledged drastic cuts to rein in Britain’s huge deficit.

“The Labour leader needs to hold the fragile coalition of the Labour Party together, while being an effective opposition, and also trying to win back traditional Labour voters and middle-class voters,” said Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics.

The new leader faces an immediate test, as the party starts its five-day annual conference in Manchester, northwest England, tomorrow to thrash out where it stands in the new political landscape. Bookmakers have made David Miliband the odds-on favourite, with his brother’s chances slightly worse than evens.

Former education secretary Ed Balls and ex-health secretary Andy Burnham are 100/1 shots and left-wing outsider Diane Abbott is even further adrift.

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