in victory he asked 'what have I done to David?'

in victory he asked 'what have I done to David?' Instead, it was his younger brother Ed who joined Andrew Marr on the top floor of Manchester’s Hilton Hotel, with its panoramic views of the cityscape, for the set-piece first interview of the new Labour era.

David was “enjoying” his first lie-in for years, not in the Leader’s Suite of the Midland, the main conference hotel, but in a smaller room that his aides had scrambled to book him when it became shockingly clear that he would need alternative accommodation.

Beside him, as he mulled over his future, his American wife, Louise, seethed at what she saw as Ed’s betrayal of his sibling.It had all seemed so different on the train to Manchester the day before. Team David had been rattled during the two-hour journey when a succession of bookmakers issued odds predicting, for the first time, victory for the younger brother.

After a quick discussion, one of the group was chosen to warn David to prepare himself for the worst. Would it not be wise, the aide suggested, for him to think about how he would handle a devastating defeat? The older Miliband would have none of it. “I’m going to win, I’m confident of that; I will be leader,” he said. “And if I do lose, I will just have to deal with it. But I’m not going to.”