Book: Ed - the Milibands and the making of a Labour leader

A highly recommended summer political read is Ed: the Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader written the by the erstwhile up and coming hacks Mehdi Hasan and James Mcintyre. British politics is a bit of a minefield as the machinations of the Westminster village get picked over for the 24 hour news cycle; however, Ed Miliband’s rise to the Labour leadership and the quite literally knife edged contest invovling fratricide and apparently putting personal ambition before family and seemingly destroying his brother David’s career and long held ambitions in the process is one of the big stand out stories of recent political times. ‘Ed’ has received favourable reviews and made something of a splash - not least given that despite its supposedly pro-Labour authors it was serialised in the right wing Mail on Sunday and put out by the boutique political publishing house Biteback. The book is the first to be written on Ed Miliband having been hastily scrawled out in under six months (it had to be with speculation that Ed Miliband has still to convince as Labour leader)and by some accounts the collaboration and ambitions of the authors was as uneasy as life in ‘planet Miliband’ - Mehdi Hasan being Senior Political Editor for the grubby rado pinko nasty lefty low circulation Newstatesman and James Macintyre being Political Editor of the glossy seldom read Prospect Magazine usually seen being used to stop aspidistras pots from marking coffee tables in the front room. The book is based on countless interviews and does strike at the heart of the relationship between the Milband brothers and how they cut their political teeth and developed their ideas, thus giving a good handle on understanding the modern Labour Party. At times it is so involved in the claustrophic Miliband tale that it doesn’t quite put events into a wider political context, it glosses over the 2010 election and at times it is a bit ragged with split infinitives proliferating (Now which co-author was branding his contribution here? Was this the product of Christchurch College, Oxford or the University of Hull?) but it is an interesting, absorbing and up to the minute read. Ed Milband faces a massive task revitalising Labour’s fortunes following their second biggest electoral defeat since World War II but the author’s message is - write off Ed Milband at your peril!

Here a few useful reviews and stories relating to the book. 1. Peter Oborne (Telegraph) - Review 2. Sunder Katwala in the Guardian: Review 3. Sunder Katwala on the Next Left Blog: Five things we’ve leant about Ed 4. Independent: Silent assassin: How Ed Miliband plotted against his brother for months 5. Serialisation in Mail on Sunday: War of the Milibands: Full extent of brothers’ feud exposed as book reveals bad blood over ‘fratricide’