Internal British party politics don’t usually have implications for the American Jewish press, but the election of Ed Miliband to the Labour party’s top post at the end of September recalls Moment Magazine’s cover story a few months ago, featuring his brother, David Miliband. David served as foreign secretary under Gordon Brown and was the runner-up to his brother in the recent internal Labour elections.
The Moment story, which I think is a nuanced portrait of a prominent Jewish British politician, said that David Miliband “is frequently spoken of as a future prime minister,” without saying the same of Ed. Later on, the article–which appeared in Moment’s November/December 2009 issue–predicted Labour’s loss this past May to the Conservatives and speculated, “If [David Miliband] makes a bid to lead the party he could end up being prime minister by the middle of the next decade.”
The article didn’t discuss the notion of a Jewish Prime Minister at length, but by profiling David Miliband and prognosticating his chances it did imply that a Jew may be at the head of Britain’s government in a few years.
Moment was right that there would be a Jew in the running, and it was right that that Jew would be a Miliband. What the magazine didn’t know was that it would be the other one–David’s younger brother Ed.
Ed Miliband does show up a few times in the story, which highlights his international work on climate change. A few quick facts about him:
- He’s more liberal than his older brother (Ed is only 40; David is 45), and was more in Gordon Brown’s camp than was David.
- He spent two semesters teaching at Harvard.
- Critics call him “Red Ed” because of his leftist economic policies.
David Miliband most likely has a solid political future ahead of him, but if there’s going to be an MOT at 10 Downing St. in the next decade, it’ll probably be Ed.
