So the Miliband clan have finally been split - into a winner and a loser. Ed goes on - triumphant. Hi brother David knows that, barring an electoral catastrophe, he will never be Labour leader, never be prime minister. It reminds myself of the Godfather Part II where Michael Corleone's feckless eldest surviving sibling complains bitterly "You're my f**king kid brother!" when Michael is the Don, the head of the family.
Michael as Don Corleone shows maturity with a heart of stone, Ed Miliband greatly emotes but his desire to weaken and destroy the Liberal Democrats shows he has some way to travel before he understands that coalition politics has changed the Westminster landscape and that any meaningful electoral reform needs third parties to offer perspective to the main two. Ed, for his part, probably guessed that if David failed, the party or the country would not be in the mood for Miliband Mk II for a considerable time, if ever again. He had to grasp this opportunity now for it might never come around a second time.
As a person, I find he is less of an automaton like his older brother and let us hope that he is 'own man', not a pawn of the unions who have many uncompromising hard-leftist leaders. But give him his due, he's sounded the death knell for New Labour which was more interested in - and better at - winning power than exercising it in the name of social democracy and he's repudiated the Iraq invasion, cleaning some of that stain from the Labour 'brand'. Whatever happens from here on in, at last we have an opposition who can coherently oppose the government and give those in power pause to think.