Ed Miliband

Ed Miliband
Name	Edward Samuel Miliband (born 24 December, 1969)
Nicknames	Ed (everyone), EMili (some Labourites), EMil (the fandom), The Emissary from Planet Fuck (Blairites) Red Ed (The Daily Fail)
Politics
Party	Labour
Constituency	Doncaster North (2005-present)
Positions	• Leader of the Opposition (2010-2015) • Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (2008-2010)
Likes	Chinese food, playing pool, Desperate Housewives
Dislikes	?
Friends	Douglas Alexander, Sadiq Khan, Gordon Brown
Enemies	Ed Balls, David Miliband, David Cameron, Tony Blair, the Blairite faction, Dan Hodges
Relationships
Partners	Liz Lloyd, Alice Miles, Stephanie Flanders, Justine Thornton (2005-present, married in 2011)
Children	Daniel Miliband (2009), Samuel Stewart Thornton Miliband (2010)
Personal Attributes
Nationality	English
Religion	Atheist
Sexuality	Straight
Height	6'0.5"
Eye Colour	Brown
Handedness	Right
Accent	North London

I am not my brother's keeper.~ Ed Miliband

Ed Miliband is a former Leader of the Opposition. He beat his brother, David, to become leader of the Labour Party in 2010. He was a special advisor to Gordon Brown, before becoming an MP and serving under Brown as Energy Secretary.

Life and Career

Early Life

The Milibands on holiday

Ed Miliband was born in North London to the Marxist academic Ralph Miliband and political activist Marion Kozak. His parents were Polish Jews who had migrated to Britain to escape persecution by the Nazis. Friends of his father, other left-wing intellectuals including Tony Benn, regularly visited their house in Primrose Hill to discuss current affairs over dinner.

He attended Haverstock Comprehensive School (the same school as ex-Labour MP Oona King) and was bullied for his middle-class nerdiness. As a teenager he reviewed films and plays for LBC Radio, was able to do a rubix cube with one hand and enjoying playing video games. At the age of 16 he did work experience for six weeks with Tony Benn. Ed went on to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford and later, Economics at the LSE.

Early Political Career

Young Treasury wonks

Ed began his political career in 1993, working as a speechwriter and researcher for Harriet Harman, while she was the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is likely that he first met Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper around this time. Following Labour's 1997 election victory he worked as a special advisor to Gordon Brown at the Treasury. During this time he also helped create the Scottish Labour Party's manifesto for the upcoming Scottish elections. He took leave from the Treasury in 2002 to teach economics at Harvard and report to Brown on the progress of the Senator John Kerry.

Parliamentary Career

In 2005 Ed resigned from the Treasury and stood as Labour's General Election candidate for the safe seat of Doncaster North, which he won. When he was appointed Minister to the Cabinet Office in 2007, he and David Miliband became the first brothers to serve together in the Cabinet since Edward and Oliver Stanley in 1938.

As Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, a post which he held from 2008, he increased the target for cutting greenhouse emissions, to 80% instead of 60% by 2050. After being threatened by the actor Peter Postlethwaite at a film premiere, he announced a new policy, that all new coal-fired power stations would have to capture and bury 25% of its emissions. He represented the UK at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit and aimed to secure a legally binding agreement for all countries to fight the effects of climate change, but was not able to.

Ed was one of the 'saints' of the MP's expenses scandal, his only unnecessary claim being a bottle of water.

Labour Leadership

Gordon Brown resigned as the leader of the Labour Party after his 2010 General Election defeat and called for a new leader to be elected. Ed Miliband announced his candidacy alongside his brother David Miliband, fellow Brownite Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and backbencher Diane Abbott. His leadership campaign was led by Sadiq Khan and backed by former leader Neil Kinnock, former deputy leaders Roy Hattersley and Margaret Beckett, and the trade unions Unite and UNISON. David's campaign team were accused of likening Ed to the character Forrest Gump, but this was strongly denied.

The result of the leadership contest took place on 25 September 2010 and Ed was named the bookies favourite that morning. He won the leadership, narrowly beating his brother with 50.65% of the total vote. Neil Kinnock was overheard as saying, "We've got our party back." which caused outrage from New Labour supporters because it seemed to suggest a reversion to an unelectable, old Labour. David decided to withdraw to the back benches, to give Ed "space to drive the party forward in the way he sees fit without any distractions". Ed was disappointed, but said his "door was always open" if David wanted to return at a later stage.

One of the first decisions Ed took as Labour leader was to try to unify his party through his Shadow Cabinet appointments. He asked Nick Brown, a staunch Brownite, to stand down as Chief Whip and appointed Alan Johnson, who had supported his brother, as the Shadow Chancellor. However Alan Johnson resigned in January 2011, due to problems in his personal life. Ed gave his job to Ed Balls - something he had previously avoided doing, because it allowed Tories to claim that the Labour party was now led by those with responsibility for the effects of the global banking crisis.

Ed's performance at PMQs is generally thought to be solid, but particularly in the early months of his leadership, he was accused of making very little impression on the public and providing no credible alternative to the government. He replied that it would be wrong to rush into policies which might not be relevant by the time of the next General Election and that he was setting out a policy review.

At the height of the News International hacking scandal in July 2011, he received credit for being more urgent and efficient in his response than the prime minister David Cameron. He openly called for those at the top of News International to resign and forced a Commons vote to prevent the company's bid for a complete takeover of BSkyB, which was backed by the government and all MPs. He was also one of the first to call for a public inquiry into the scandal.

Full List of Appointments
• Minister for the Cabinet Office (2007-2008)
• Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (2008-2010)
• Leader of the Opposition (2010-2015)

2015 General Election

Ed led the Labour Party into the general election in 2015.

The Labour platform consisted of 6 policies which Ed carved into stone. Literally.

Ed Stone

Not everyone was taken by the idea, however.

Another Labour insider told of the scene in the press office when Miliband posed with the notorious Ed stone, the 8ft 6in slab of limestone upon which his six key election pledges were inscribed. When it appeared on TV, a press officer ‘started screaming. He stood in the office, just screaming over and over again at the screen. It was so bad they thought he was having a breakdown.’

It also went on to produce #EdStone and #StoneEd on twitter to much amusement of the twitterati. Although it was reported at the time that the stunt cost the party somewhere in the region of £30,000, The Telegraph reported that commissioning, transporting and storing the 8ft 6in limestone plinth actually cost just a mere £8,000. However, it turned out that the Labour Party had failed to file the correct invoices regarding the EdStone as required by the Election Commission within the appropriate timeframe. This resulted in the Electoral Commission launching an investigation into the EdStone in January 2016.

The stone was meant to be shown off in a school hall but it turned out that it was too heavy and would have ruined the flooring which in turn led to pictures of Ed, in front of a massive stone tablet in the grey outdoors. Not only that, but the person that carved Ed's policies into stone was actually a Tory voter. Thankfully, the stone was destroyed shortly after the election, never to be seen again.

It was later revealed that in addition to spending a load of money a stone slab which later went "missing", Labour also spent £557.58 of hiring chicken suits for the general election.

He held on to his seat, but the party ended up winning 232 seats across the country, 26 fewer than they had won in 2010. Ed Miliband resigned as leader the following day.

Personal Life

Ed, Justine and their sons

Ed dated Justine Thornton from 2005. They met at a dinner party in London, where Justine was struck by Ed's eyes and intelligence . They had their first child, Daniel, in 2009, and their second, Samuel, in 2010. On becoming leader of the opposition, there was much criticism from the media on his unmarried status, but Ed said that he would not be pressured into getting married. He was embarrassed when his name was found to be missing from his older son's birth certificate and said that he had forgotten to add it.

The happy couple

Ed proposed to Justine on Primrose Hill in March 2010 and they were married on 27th May 2011 in a civil ceremony near Nottingham. After the ceremony there were readings from Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the poem 'I Carry Your Heart With Me' by E.E Cummings. He had a 'low key' stag night beforehand, which he said "won’t be two Fabian Society lectures and half a pint of beer" but probably was. Colleagues bought him an iPad as a wedding gift.

Appearance

The two most striking and noticeable features of Ed's appearance are his very large brown eyes and the patch of white in his black hair. His eyes have been likened to a panda's and are very intimidating when they don't blink, as captured in his 2010 Christmas message video. His patch of white hair (known in fandom as the 'Milipatch') is a source of interest because it is a feature he shares with David Miliband.

Ideology

Ed is considered to be a Brownite, as he spent most of his early political career working for Gordon Brown, but was one of the least tribal people during the period of Blair-Brown rivalry. He was reportedly the only member of the Brown team who did not tell Blairites to "Fuck off" earning him the nickname 'The Emissary from Planet Fuck'. In a review of Hasan and McIntyre's biography, the blogger Mark Pack remarks that: "Ed Miliband appears to have been at the same time both more critical of Brown than other Brownites yet also the loyalest of the loyal to Brown."

As leader, he had been criticised for not yet having a clear vision for Labour. Peter Mandelson was one of Ed's most open Labour critics, particularly over his rejection of many Blairite policies. "He was quick to say what he was against: essentially, Tory policies and Tony's policies. But he rarely said what he was for." At the same time he commented that: "I would sum up his position as being an egalitarian social liberal – different from Tony, yet not a reversion to old Labour."

Portrayal

In the Media

Smile, boys.

In the media, much had been made of the rivalry between Ed and his brother David during the Labour leadership contest, with references to 'Cain and Abel' being particularly notable. He was nicknamed 'Red Ed' by the Sun newspaper because his political stance was to the left of his brother's and he had the support of Trade Unions and old Labour figures such as Neil Kinnock. Steve Bell of the Guardian characterises Ed as 'death-ray panda', due to his large eyes. His opponents have nicknamed him 'Wallace', after the character from 'Wallace and Gromit'.

In Culture

The Miliband brothers were the subject of the comic docudrama Miliband of Brothers, in which Ed was played by Ben Lloyd-Hughs. In the musical Nicked, he was played by Ross Green.

Milifandom

In the build up to the 2015 general election, a lot of people got annoyed at the way that Ed was being treated by the papers/generally dismissed without even bothering to listen to him. A young woman took to the internet and created the #Milifandom. The fandom consisted mostly of people photoshopping Ed's head onto the bodies of hunky celebrities and flowercrown edits.

Opinion in most lolitics circles was generally favourable to the #Milifandom, even though we've been around way, way longer.

Milibae surrounded by adoring fans

Even though Ed is no longer the leader of the Labour Party the Milifandom keeps popping up, mostly due to drunken teenagers bumping into Ed in real life and insisting on taking photos with him.

In Fanon

#AskEdM extracts

Even his opponents and critics readily admit that Ed is a 'nice guy'. In his book, 22 Days in May, David Laws writes: "As a consequence of being decent, polite, reasonable and somewhat geekish, Ed had never seemed likely to rise to the very top of his party. His elbows did not seem nearly sharp enough." Combined with his wide-eyed, gormless look, he comes across in fandom, and often the media, as a naive and childlike character.

Ed has been known to underestimate the internet, and occasionally allows the public to question him on twitter through the hashtag #AskEdM. Unsurprisingly, this receives more questions along the lines of 'Have you been injured in an accident that wasn't your fault?' than 'What is your position on cuts to local council budgets?'. However Ed is learning to restrain his inherant durpyness since becoming leader of the opposition and handles them with only minor awkwardness.

In the Lolitics RP, Ed is represented by 'edwardkins', who appears on community posts from time to time, tormented by his bitter brother or members of his Shadow Cabinet.

A popular verse on the meme is of the 'Milibot', based on either Miliband brother sounding or behaving like a robot.

Meme

Shipping

Ed is shipped with many politicians, but most frequently with his brother David and with Douglas Alexander. Other commons pairings are with his former mentor, Gordon Brown, and with political rivals, Ed Balls, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Based on the canon that the two shared a flat during the early 90s, it is assumed that he has long held unrequited feelings for Yvette Cooper. In the early days of the fandom, Ed was shipped with Caroline Lucas, due to their mutual environment-loving ways.

CUDDLE HIM