COMMENT After three decades of coronations, a Labour leadership contest has finally gone right to the wire. Ed Miliband’s victory over his brother, David, was by the narrowest of margins. He prevailed by just 51 per cent to 49 per cent.
It is certainly good for the party’s internal democracy and renewal that it has at last broken out of the sterile stage management of the Blair and Brown years. But whether the result makes Labour more electable in the country at large depends on the next steps of its relatively unknown new leader. True, the opinion polls suggest that Labour is running almost neck and neck with the Tories. But its long leadership contest has largely marginalised the party in the wider public debate. Mr Miliband must re-engage it.
