Why the Miliband brothers really went head to head
As a young boy Ed decided that politics was a route to his father and mother. It made the fight with his brother inevitable
If people had noticed it and thought about it, and then placed it in the context of what had gone before – and indeed, what was about to follow – they would have understood. Or if they hadn’t understood at that moment, it would have at least set them on the path to understanding why he stabbed his brother in the back. This is what Ed Miliband said in his first speech as Labour leader:
“The gifts my parents gave to me and David are the things I want for every child in this country. A secure and loving home. Encouragement and the aspiration to succeed.
“In those ways my family was just like every other. But in some ways it was different. I suppose not everyone has a dad who wrote a book saying he didn’t believe in the parliamentary road to socialism.
“But you know, it wasn’t a cold house.
“It was warm, full of the spirit of argument and conviction, the conviction that leads me to stand before you today, the conviction that people of courage and principle can make a huge difference to their world.’’
It wasn’t a cold house. The line was just sitting there, all alone, in the middle of the text. To the trained eye, it looked like some form of “prebuttal’’, a word politicians used for the refutation of a charge not yet made.
One person who spotted it was Philip Collins. And the only reason he’d spotted it was he’d seen it before. Of all the people who had been drafted in to help with the speech, his involvement was the most surprising. He was David Miliband’s speechwriter.
Just before the speech was due to be “locked’’ – or as close to being locked as anything ever was in Ed Miliband’s team – he’d received a call from his friend Greg Beales [an Ed Miliband aide]. Was there any chance he could look over the final draft of Ed’s speech and give him some feedback?
And because they were friends – and because he’d just spent the best part of a month labouring over David Miliband’s utterly redundant leader’s speech, and was curious – he said yes. So he read it, and immediately realised it was just as big a mess as he’d expected it to be. He went back to Greg and told him he thought it needed some work.
So Ed’s staff started passing him the bits of the speech that contained personal stuff. He saw the line, “It wasn’t a cold house,’’ which he thought was a bit odd. In David’s speech they’d accentuated the positive, describing how it was “a warm house’’. And he saw a couple of other bits. He asked where the rest of it was. ‘The rest of what?’ they responded.
And that’s when he realised. This was all the personal stuff they had. But it contained nothing. No colour, no detail. If you heard this, Ed Miliband had been living his life in bland monochrome. So, for example, the bits in David’s speech about his father had all been fleshed out. He didn’t just “serve in the Navy’’. He joined at 18 and was at D-Day. He didn’t like hammocks so he slept on the table.
When he’d left his last ship just before the 1945 election, his commanding officer’s last words to him had been: “Goodbye Miliband, don’t vote Labour.’’
And Collins knew he’d promised David not to use any of this stuff. But this was Ed’s stuff, too. It was his family history just as much as it was David’s. So he asked Ed,
“Why haven’t you put any of this in yourself? The hammock. The voting Labour line.’’
And Ed was looking at him. And the staff were looking at him. And it was at that moment that Philip Collins properly understood. He hadn’t used it because he didn’t know it. This wasn’t his history. And he said to himself: “Jesus. I know more about Ed Miliband’s father than Ed Miliband does.’’
It wasn’t a cold house, he’d said. But it had been, in truth. Or maybe not a cold house. Cold wasn’t right. As David Miliband said – or was going to say in his own speech – it could frequently be a rich and stimulating and lively house.
Not a cold house. A political house. That was it. A political house. That was the source. The whole Brother Thing. It was just a politics thing. Everything in Ed Miliband’s house had been a politics thing. Everything in his life had been a politics thing. That’s why there had been no great incident. How could there be?
The only thing that had real resonance within their young lives was politics. Girls. Toys. They were there, in the background. But they weren’t going to fight over them. Because at the end of the day it was only politics that mattered.
And yes, Ed Miliband had realised at a young age that politics was the route through to his father. And his mother. But politics was his route to everything. It was his route to his father. It was his route to his mother. It was his route to his brother. It was his route to university.
It was his route to his career. It was his route to his friends. It was the route to the books he read. It was the route to the films he saw. It was the route to everything. It was the road map to his life. And so the question, “How could Ed Miliband have done that to his brother?’ should really have been reversed. Why wouldn’t he do that to his brother?
It’s just what you did in politics. It was politics. You set yourself your goal. You convinced yourself your goal was just and pure and – crucially – that only you could achieve it. So you set your course, unflinching and unyielding. You came across an obstacle. You removed the obstacle. Sometimes subtly, at other times brutally. And then you rationalised your brutality. It was unfortunate, but it had to be done. The morality of self-interest.
Then, just to make your passage slightly easier, you constructed a narrative around your journey. To make it clear where you’d been, and where you were going. At times the narrative charted your route faithfully. Occasionally it played a trick or two. Like the visit to see your brother in the middle of the night to tell him you were going to challenge him for the prize he’d coveted all his life.
And then you secured your goal. And it was all worth it. All the sacrifices. All the compromises. You had prevailed. What better proof could there be that your decision to embark on your journey had been the right one? And you stood on that stage, with the cheers of the crowd still ringing in your ears – slightly muted cheers in the judgment of some. But the bulbs were flashing, the reporters were scribbling and the cameras were rolling. And you knew that back at home your mother was watching.
And that was the moment you were able to look out into the crowd, find your brother and fix your gaze on him and say: “David, I love you.’’ And as you did so, you knew you meant every single word of it. She [Marion Kozak, Ed Miliband’s mother] looked older since the last time he [an old friend] had seen her. But the fire was still there. It was still alive. He felt nervous when he first walked into the flat.
Partly because she retained the ability to dominate the space around her. And partly because he hadn’t been sure how she’d react to what he had to say. But he had to come. He couldn’t bear to sit back and just watch it all unfold.
So they sat there. Two old friends. Looking at each other the way old friends do.
At first she didn’t want to engage directly. It was hard. She admitted that. It was quite hard on her.
Precisely. It was hard for everyone. For her. For the people who cared about her. It would be hard for both of them. And the wives. And the grandchildren. Everyone was going to lose from this.
And she listened. He could see she was listening. And she heard. She was absorbing it, and processing it. But that was what worried him. He’d seen Marion do this before. The way she would use other people’s arguments to energise herself.
And he could see it starting to happen again. They weren’t boys now. They were men. They had their own paths to follow. Yes. But she was still their mother. They both loved her and they both listened to her.
She smiled and nodded. Of course she loved them.
They both had. Ralph [Miliband] had surprised himself with how much he loved the boys, given the ambivalence he’d felt when she’d first become pregnant. But they had expressed their love by teaching each of them to think for themselves. To question. Always to question.
But this was different. Surely she could see that? They weren’t fighting some corporate monolith or totalitarian regime. They were fighting each other. And unless someone stepped in, they were going to hurt one another.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. But they had gone into this with their eyes wide open. And they hadn’t just stumbled into this. David was a former foreign secretary and Edward was a former environment secretary. Titles didn’t really impress her all that much. But neither of the boys had got where they were by accident.
He knew he was losing the argument. He could see her steeling herself. Like the old days. She was growing stronger by the minute.
‘‘But Marion, you’re talking about politics. I’m talking about family. At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing. It’s always got to be about the family.’’
She paused and looked away. And for an instant, for a split second, he thought he’d landed a blow. Then she looked up at him. The fire had reached her eyes. “No. It’s about the politics. Always about the politics.”