How Ed Miliband became the power behind Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer’s early leadership was defined by the expulsion of his predecessor. Jeremy Corbyn is no longer a Labour MP and will not be a Labour candidate at the next election. But now another former party leader is quietly defining Starmer’s leadership. This week Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, caused outrage by suggesting that rich countries should pay aid to nations worst hit by climate change.

Miliband’s influence extends far beyond his brief. Resentment has been brewing among Labour frontbenchers about just how much Starmer seems to listen to him. After all, he presided over one of Labour’s worst election results in 2015, a memory that has faded only because Corbyn did even more damage four years later.

‘He’s the elephant in the room,’ says one party figure. Miliband seems to be everywhere; his ideas crop up in many of Labour’s core policy proposals and he’s present in the leader’s office quite often too.