This is Miliband’s moment, and he should run as the ‘we screwed up’ challenger

It may be time to stop talking about whether David Miliband challenges Gordon Brown, and start talking about when. The young cabinet minister plainly contemplates the possibility — or why would he have been so conspicuously keeping his options open since speculation began? — and nothing has happened that makes a Miliband bid look less auspicious than it did at the outset. Indeed the Chancellor’s star is falling. If Mr Miliband doesn’t go for it now he’s a wimp — a no-show who, after a braver soul like John Hutton had gone to his political death in a doomed but heroic challenge to Mr Brown, and after Brown had lost the next general election, would find that the spotlight had moved away from the ones who didn’t dare. The Labour party would then be in a state of internal strife and looking for a unifying figure. My guess is that in the event that Brown did not stay on as leader, someone like Hilary Benn would be the choice.