Ed Miliband: David and I have moved on after Labour leadership battle

Ed Miliband says he will ‘stick to the mission’ of leading Labour and reveals he has been taking advice from Tony Blair Ed Miliband has sought to play down claims of a continuing rift with his brother, David, in the wake of their bitter contest for the Labour leadership, insisting they have both moved on. In an interview with the Independent on Sunday , the Labour leader said he would not be distracted by the renewed speculation over his relationship with his older sibling, but would “stick to the mission” to lead his party. He disclosed that he had been taking advice from Tony Blair, who was widely thought to have favoured David Miliband for leader and who last week called on Labour to retain the political centre ground. The interview comes as a ComRes poll for the IoS and the Sunday Mirror gave the Labour leader a -27% approval rating, down 10 points on a similar poll last month. The latest speculation about Miliband’s leadership followed the publication of a biography by Mehdi Hasan and James McIntyre that claimed the brothers and their wives were barely on speaking terms. Newspaper reports have suggested that David Miliband was now waiting for Ed to fail so that he could claim the top job. Ed Miliband, however, insisted that David had “moved on, so everybody else should too”. “Everybody knows that we fought a leadership election last year. As I said at the time I was pleased to have won and disappointed for him, but both of us have moved on,” he said. Pressed on his suggestion last year that they would one day “look back at all of this and laugh”, he admitted they had not yet reached that point. “I don’t think we’ve done that yet, but I think what I would say is that both of us have moved on,” Miliband said. He refused to be drawn on claims that they could not agree on whether he had informed David of his intention to run for the leadership after Gordon Brown’s resignation. “I’m not going to get into the detail of this. What we both agree on is that we talked before both our candidacies were declared and talked to him about the position too and we’re both on the same page on that,” he said. Miliband also brushed off reports that their wives, Justine and Louise, and also fallen out. “Nonsense, nonsense, that’s nonsense. It’s nonsense. David and Louise were at our wedding a few weeks ago, and we had a great day. It was great that they were there and enjoyed themselves,” he said. Asked about suggestions that the Milibands’ mother, Marion Kozak, was “in despair” at the state of relations between her sons, he replied: “I’m not going to get into my conversations with her about it.” The poll showed Miliband has suffered a sharp fall in his public approval ratings. It found that 18% of respondents believed he had turned out to be a good leader, against 45% who did not, a net approval rating of -27%, with 37% saying they did not know. The findings represent a 10-point drop since last month when 22% said Miliband was proving to be a good leader and 39% disagreed – a rating of -17%. The latest poll found 27% believed that David Miliband would be a better choice as leader, against 17% who disagreed. There was worse news for Nick Clegg, with 20% saying he was a good leader of the Liberal Democrats, compared with 57% who disagreed – a net rating of -37%. Opinions on David Cameron were more evenly divided, with 37% saying they believed he was a good prime minister and 44% disagreeing – a net rating of -7%. Overall, the poll put Labour and the Conservatives level on 37%, with Labour down two points on last month and the Tories down one. The Lib Dems were unchanged on 11%. ComRes interviewed 2,008 adults online on 15 and 16 June. Ed Miliband David Miliband Labour guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 19, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.