Ed Miliband’s election as leader of Britain’s Labour Party was by the narrowest of margins and signifies a desire by the party to start afresh after a bad electoral defeat.

Ed Miliband beat his brother David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary and Tony Blair’s natural heir, by only 1.3 per cent of the vote. He must now unite the party. Only time will tell whether his brother’s resignation from frontline politics will make this task easier or more difficult.

Ed Miliband will also have to convince the electorate that Labour, which lost five million votes since 1997, can offer a credible alternative to the Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition and has not abandoned the middle ground of British politics. The fact that Labour is now alone in opposition makes this task even more difficult.

The decision by Ed Miliband’s brother, a key architect of New Labour, not to stand for the shadow Cabinet, and the fact that the new leader was elected as a result of the support of trade unionists, will convince some voters that the party has now turned to the left.

The Conservatives have made much of these two developments, and consequently labelled Ed Miliband ‘Red Ed’, claiming Labour is now moving away from the political centre.

There is no doubt this election was a genuine one and was not stage managed like the transition from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown, which in itself is a good thing.

Although David Miliband was the front-runner in this leadership campaign, it seems the backing he received from Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson could have worked against him.

The irony of this election is that Ed Miliband was very close to Gordon Brown, who led Labour to its worst defeat since 1983, and had spent years working as his special adviser before becoming an MP in 2005 and later joining the Cabinet.

David Miliband, on the other hand, was closely linked to Tony Blair, who won three consecutive elections for Labour, and headed his policy unit in Downing Street from 1997-2001 before entering the Commons and subsequently the government.

Ed Miliband now has to reach out to the wider electorate and prove the party has not abandoned the political centre. It is true that Ed Miliband swung somewhat to the left during the leadership campaign in order to get the backing of the trade unionists.

However, he will have to keep in mind that Labour won three elections in a row under Blair only because it accepted many of Margaret Thatcher’s reforms. It is doubtful, therefore, that the electorate will feel comfortable with a left-wing Labour Party come election time.

Ed Miliband’s first speech as party leader was not brilliant, but it wasn’t disappointing either. He tried to lay a basis for his new leadership and give it some sort of direction while at the same time unite the party.

Considering he had to address the country at large – where he has a low profile – as well extend his hand of friendship to his defeated brother, he did a reasonable job.

Most of the points raised in his speech, even though somewhat vague, would suggest that Ed Miliband does not intend to abandon the centre, but we will only know whether this is the case when the party announces its concrete policies.

Ed Miliband admitted that after its poor electoral result the party had to change, show humility, listen to people and learn some “painful truths”.

He also called for a “living wage” – higher than the current minimum wage but also pledged not to oppose every budget cut proposed by the coalition government.

The majority of Ed Miliband’s arguments to the party conference could, in fact, have been made by his brother David Miliband – with the obvious exception of Iraq, which remains a divisive issue within the Labour Party.

When Ed Miliband told the delegates – to wide applause – that the Iraq war had been wrong, his brother David Miliband, who supported the war, looked clearly annoyed and, turning to deputy leader Harriet Harman, asked: “What are you clapping for? You voted for it.”

The reference to Iraq must have been the last straw for David Miliband, who, despite being gracious in defeat, was said to be very upset at losing the leadership battle.

David Miliband’s decision not to seek election to the shadow Cabinet probably makes sense, even though I believe he is a great loss for Labour. The defeated candidate announced that to avoid “constant comparison” with his brother Ed Miliband, and because of the “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”, he would not stand for the shadow Cabinet.

There is, of course, another consideration. David Miliband, who is extremely talented, remains a backbencher, and at only 44, he could well be waiting in the wings to fight for the leadership once again if his brother fails to win the next election.

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