Tim Walker

Mandrake

Tail Wags the Dog

After managing to lose the 2015 General Election to David Cameron and saying he would step down as leader to give Labour a chance to “rebuild”, Ed Miliband apparently sees himself as the ‘comeback kid’.

The Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary’s allies have lately been briefing the press about a ‘coronation’ as Miliband himself has been becoming increasingly outspoken in his criticism of Keir Starmer over the Peter Mandelson affair.

At the Daily Mirror, the one reliably pro-Labour tabloid, the news has been greeted with what might, at best, be called limited enthusiasm. Old hands recall the last time Miliband was running for the premiership when he would call the paper’s then Editor, Lloyd Embley, daily during the campaign asking for ideas.

“It gets a bit embarrassing when the tail is wagging the dog to that extent,” one former staffer told Mandrake. “Out of fairness to Lloyd, the widely ridiculed ‘Ed Stone’ – an 8ft 6in, two-tonne limestone slab engraved with six key campaign pledges – and the bacon sarnie photo opportunity were definitely not his ideas.”