All the latest developments, as Ed Miliband is elected leader of the Labour party

9.44am: Good morning, it's David Batty here kicking off our live coverage of the long-awaited conclusion to Labour's leadership contest. The politics team will be bringing you the latest news and analysis as we count down to the result due to be declared at about 4.35pm as the party's conference opens in Manchester.

First off here's a summary of what the papers have to say about the impending decision.

The Guardian reports that the result is too close to call, although the momentum seems to have swung in favour of Ed Miliband, who yesterday overtook his brother David as the bookmakers' favourite.

It leads with a warning from one of Labour's most senior figures, Alan Johnson, that the new leader must not push the party to the left, which the paper sees as a sign of the potential rifts that face the winner. The comments by Johnson, who supports David Miliband, are seen as thinly veiled criticism of Ed, nicknamed "Red Ed", and fellow leadership contender Ed Balls, who wants to set a longer timetable for reducing the UK's deficit.

The Telegraph says if Ed does win it would be "a devastating blow both personally and politically to David Miliband", who was initially expected to be the most likely victor. The paper adds that speculation is growing that while David might accept a shadow cabinet position under his brother he would do so only "for form's sake" and would stay no longer than six months.

The Independent says the Miliband brothers have been "bickering to the bitter end" of the contest. The paper reports that friends of David have accused Ed's supporters of infuencing the betting odds by making false claims that the brothers' camps had held talks "on how to handle a result that would leave one brother a triumphant winner and the other a deeply disappointed loser".

The Daily Mail reports that David and Ed's mother, Marion Kozak, will not be present when the leader is announced because she cannot bear to watch the result. The paper claims some MPs fear the siblings' battle "has unleashed a psychodrama as damaging for Labour as the rivalry between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown".

10.40am: Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock said he is confident that Ed Miliband will emerge victorious, albeit on second preference votes.

"It will definitely go to second preferences and that is where I think Ed will pick up significant support - enough to give him the edge over David," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Perhaps in a bid to ease the tension between the brothers' camps, he added: "Both of the candidates are very, very bright. Both of them have a great deal of experience of the inside machinery of government. Both have total commitment."

Douglas Alexander, the shadow international development secretary who led David Miliband's campaign, said he believed his candidate had retained his lead.

"I think David is going to win but predictions with only a few hours to go before the result don't matter very much; the truth is we will find out soon enough," he told Today.

He alos insisted that the siblings' rivalry was not comparable to the rift between Blair and Brown, which poisoned New labour.

"The real challenge for David and Ed was to avoid the sense that we were somehow reliving some psychodramas that we had in Labour's past."

But he would not be drawn on whether David would serve in a cabinet led by his younger brother. "My profound hope is that we will all work together, not just the two brothers."

10.49am: For those of you confused by the leadership voting system, here's an explainer on the complicated electoral process. The Guardian calls for the party's election rules to be overhauled, noting it is now "the only one of the three major parties which does not choose its leader on the basis of a one-member-one-vote system". The New Stateman notes that under the current rules the vote of one MP is worth the votes of 608 party members.

In a leader article, the Telegraph argues that the drawn-out contest has failed to produce any realistic assessment of what went wrong during Labour's 13 years in office. It calls on the winner to show they put the country's interest before the party's and apologise for the mess the last government left behind.

Meanwhile this piece on Comment is Free warns the new shadow cabinet that the Coaltion government has won over voters in key marginal seats on key issues such as the deficit reduction. It argues that the new Labour leadership must focus its attacks on David Cameron and his values, rather than the easier target of Nick Clegg, if it is to win back public support.

11.27am: The Guardian's John Harris examines how the Miliband soap opera has overshadowed the contest. He observes that the brother vs brother saga has been "sky-scrapingly odd" and overshadowed the campaigns of the other candidates - Andy Burnham, Diane Abbott and Ed Balls.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times suggests why Ed has gained the advantage over his older brother. The paper notes how at their final hustings at the Trade Union Congress on September 13, David Miliband failed to commit to joining a rally to protest against cuts in public spending, which went down like a lead balloon.

11.37am: On the Left Foot Forward blog, Richard Darlington, of the centre-left thinktank Demos, writes of the uphill struggle facing the new Labour leader:

Whichever Miliband wins the Labour leadership this afternoon, they are going to face a major challenge connecting Labour with mainstream voters. If Ed Miliband wins, as the bookies are now predicting, Labour will get a fresh start. Because the former climate secretary is not well know by the public, he can paint a fresh picture on a blank canvas. But his election is going to be caricatured by the right-wing press as Labour lurching left; if David Miliband wins, he will need to retain the support of the media while proving to voters that he leads a united party that has listened to voters about the failures of New Labour.

11.55am: BBC comedy has a rather more irreverent take on the leadership contest, unfortunately the humour is more on the level of the Friday Night Project than Spitting Image. Personally, the brothers remind me of Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.

The Guardian's John Crace offers a wry look at the various leadership contenders. His verdict on David Miliband? "A 12-year old from the Planet Zog holding a banana."

Meanwhile The Thick of It's Malcolm Tucker offers his barbed congratulations to the successful candidate - whoever it may be.

12.54pm: David Miliband is playing down mounting speculation that he has lost the vote.

As he left his London home to travel to Manchester for the declaration, he told ITV News:

Since no-one knows what the result is, I'd take with a very large pinch - in fact a very large skip - of salt anything that says about who knows what the result is.

He insisted that he could work under his brother's leadership and joked that they would enjoy a drink together whatever the result. "I hope that there's more than a pint," he said.

Miliband senior added he was glad their "poor mum" had got through the ordeal of the brothers battling it out for the party leadership.

"Well, I think that she's survived so that's good - as we all have," he said.

1.23pm: Next Left, the Fabian Society's blog, has a guide to the electoral college results, with a focus on the share of the votes both Miliband brothers need to win.

Right, I'm signing off now. Andrew Sparrow will continue our live coverage from the Labour conference in Manchester.

1.55pm: Hello. It's Andrew Sparrow here, taking over from David, who was writing the blog while I was on the train to Manchester. I'm now sitting in the press room in the conference centre. Every few minutes a new journalist arrives and asks if there's any news. And the answer is - no. We've all got theories as to who might have won, but - to be honest - it's all guesswork.

I don't suppose the bookies know any more, but Sky has just been interviewing someone from Ladbrokes anyway. He said that around £100,000 has been bet on the contest through his company. David Miliband was favourite until yesterday, when the odds suddenly shifted towards Ed. What changed? One theory is that it was just this post, from Mike Smithson at PolitcalBetting.

2.09pm: The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg has seen Gordon Brown arrive at the conference hall.

Gordon Brown arrives - big smiles all round but he wouldn't say who he had backed

My understanding is that Brown decided not to vote for any of the candidates. According to Sky, Nick Brown, the chief whip, and Harriet Harman, who will be deputy leader again at 4.40pm, did not vote either because they want to show their neutrality.

Screengrab of David Miliband beiong interviewed on Sky News today Photograph: Sky News screengrab

2.15pm: David Miliband has just arrived and given a "doorstep" interview to the broadcasters. He said that he was "pretty confident" but he admitted that he did not really have a clue about the result.

There's no point trying to spin you on this. I do not know what happened. And you don't either.

He also said that he thought that he had run a good campaign and that it had addressed "not just the Labour party, but the wider electorate". Someone asked him why he was not wearing a suit. He said that you don't normally wear a suit when you get on a train to Manchester, but he said he would put one on later. He also made another reference to Manchester.

When you come to Manchester, you remember what Alex Ferguson tells you. Only think about winning at this stage. Don't think about the other option.

2.26pm: Journalists are often famous for not understanding maths and I've just heard a good example on the TV. A presenter suggested that a low turnout in the union section of the electoral college would be bad new for Ed Miliband. But the unions will have 33% of the electorate college votes regardless whether 3 million of them vote, or whether it is just Tony Woodley and Dave Prentis. A low turnout in the union section would probably be good for Ed Miliband, because if just the leftwing activists (who are more likely to back Ed) took part, their votes would, in proportional terms, count for more.

2.27pm: Nick Brown, Labour's chief whip, has just been on News 24. He confirmed that he, Gordon Brown and Harman did not vote in the contest. (See 2.09pm) Tony Lloyd, the chairman of the parliamentary party, also decided not to vote for the same reason, Brown said.

2.30pm: Ed Miliband has just arrived at the conference centre.

I'm confident about my campaign. But I think nobody knows what the result will be.

Sky's Jon Craig told him he was the bookies' favourite. Miliband said that, having told everyone throughout the campaign to ignore the bookies (his brother was favourite until yesterday), he was not going to start telling people to believe them now.

2.34pm: A colleague tells me he has just seen Sarah Brown with her two sons. Fraser, the youngest, is wearing a Superman costume.

2.43pm: Sunder Katwala has posted a really useful guide to interpreting the results on the Next Left website. Here's an extract.

If there is a magic number in the first round, it is the difference between 40% of the party members' vote and the 38% David Miliband got in the final poll. If David Miliband has 13.33% on the CLP section, he is probably going to win the party members section. At 12.67%, YouGov have him on track to lose it. The arithmetical gap between triumph and disaster is narrow indeed.

2.56pm: Here are pickings from Twitter.

From my colleague Jonathan Freedland

Chat with Neil Kinnock in the taxi queue at Manc Piccadilly: predicts Ed M gets 52.14%. Insists no insider info, just 'gut knowledge' of Lab



From the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg

Andy Burnham arrives with his kids says its been difficult at times getting heard but says he s just as nervous about the everton result!



From the Mirror's Kevin Maguire

Gordon Brown looking well. Nice little chat. He's remarkably resilient. And a couple of inches shorter than me...



And from somone called stackee

Kay Burley just greeted Gordon Brown at #lab10 with "Hi, Prime Minister." Brilliant!

2.59pm: According to PoliticsHome (subscription), this is what Andy Burnham said when he arrived at the conference centre.

It is impossible to read and the one thing we can be sure of is it will be a good day for Labour; a new generation is coming forward. The first priority is to bring the Labour party together and set out a principled alternative to the course the ConDem government has brought us on.

3.02pm: Ed Balls has arrived, with his wife Yvette Cooper. He did not stop for a chat with the broadcasters. All the candidates are now at the conference hall.

3.17pm: Bob Ainsworth, the shadow defence secretary, has just told BBC News that the mood is good at the Labour conference.

The party is in good heart. We have got a lot of new members in the parliamentary Labour party. We have not fallen apart. The candidates have conducted themselves in an exemplary fashion. People are just waiting to get that new team into place and to get back into play and present ourselves as an alternative government to the coalition.

3.24pm: Mike Gapes, a Labour MP, tweets that he queued for an hour to get into the hall for the leadership announcement.

3.30pm: Andy Burnham made a joke on his way in about this week being the week of the underdog.

Having been at Brentford earlier this week - and then having seen Northampton Town at Anfield - I get the feeling it is the week of the underdog, don't you?

I know zilch about football, but the Press Association tells me that this was a reference to his team, Everton, being beaten by the lower-league Brentford in the Carling Cup.

3.46pm: If Ed Miliband wins, the unions will take credit. Earlier I had another look at the YouGov poll of Labour members and trade unionists (pdf) that came out earlier this month.

It showed Ed Miliband two points ahead in a run-off against his brother. When YouGov did a similar poll in July, David Miliband was clearly ahead. The figures for MPs and individual members did not change a great deal between July and September, but Ed Miliband managed to overtake his brother because he went from being eight points behind David in the union section in July to being seven points ahead in September.

Union members decide for themselves how they vote, but there is a lot of evidence to suggest that they are influenced by the endorsements given by the union leadership. Union money helps too. In an interview earlier today, Derek Simpson, the joint general secretary of Unite, said he thought that his union had had an impact.

We've supported Ed Miliband and obviously we'd like to see him win ... he's come from well behind to what the polls are now calling too close to call, which I think shows that we've had an impact.

3.57pm: A Labour official is rounding up any journalists who want to be in the hall for the announcement and telling them to get in there now. I'm staying in the press room, at my desk by the TV monitor. I'll be able to take notes more easily and I'll have less fear of my internet connection crashing.

Gordon Brown. Photograph: David Moir/Reuters

4.01pm: Labour is getting a new leader, but it is also saying goodbye to its old one. Gordon Brown is here and he will be speaking. It will be his first high-profile speaking engagement since the general election.

4.04pm: John Woodcock has just posted this on Twitter.

'Let's stick together' is playing in the hall... Subtle.

4.10pm: In the hall they're showing a video outlining Labour's achievements. It mentions things like Sure Start centres being built, extra nurses being hired, and new hospitals being built. Apparently, the biggest cheers were for the foxhunting ban and the introduction of civil partnerships.

4.11pm: The Labour video ends with the statement: "Don't let anyone say we didn't make a difference."

4.18pm: Ray Collins, the Labour general secretary, is speaking now. He says he first met Gordon Brown in 1983 and that he was struck then by his intellect and his passion for a fair society. But Brown was also motivated by his desire to get Labour elected. He and Tony Blair transformed Labour, Collins says.

He mentions some of Labour's achievements. And he says that he is proud of having had the chance to celebrate his own civil partnership. That's interesting. I've never heard Ray Collins refer to his sexuality in that way.

He moves on to the financial crisis. Without the action taken by Brown, Britain would have faced another great depression, he says.

He thanks Brown. And he thanks his wife Sarah too, saying her commitment to a fairer Britain was as great as his.

I know that we have learnt the lessons you taught us. Every moment we spend in opposition, we will fight to ensure that this term in government is the coalition's last.

4.19pm: Adam Boulton on Sky makes the point that there are not many members of the Blair inner circle here today.

4.20pm: Brown has just come onto the stage. A video showing some of his achievements, including footage of him with President Obama, has just been shown.

Screengrab from BBC News of Gordon Brown speaking in Manchester today

4.24pm: Brown is speaking. He says he has come here with Sarah to be with "the party we love". He has served it, and will serve it for the rest of his life. He will always been Labour.

He wants to say two short words that politicians never say enough: "Thank you."

He thanks Harriet Harman. He thanks the party's elected members, the councillors, the trade unionists and the activists "who live our party's values every day". And he thanks the party's staff, who work not for high rewards, but for high values.

And he thanks his own staff. Their names "are written on my heart". They worked for social justice..

And he wants to thank Sarah "for a love affair that will never end". She is his "hero".

4.28pm: Brown has just delivered some nice family jokes.

He said his son John received some fan mail. If John's TV skills are like his own, it won't last, he said.

And he said Fraser did a better job than the electorate at putting him in his place. Fraser said he wanted to be a teacher, a builder and a dad. "But you are just a dad," Fraser told Brown.

He thanked the press for its "fair and balanced reporting of him" - the Fife Free Press, he said, after a pause.

And he had a joke about Tony Blair too. He said he received an offer from someone who required a reference from his previous employer. But he did not realise Blair's reference was going to weigh in at 700 pages.

4.29pm: Brown is back on politics. He says Labour is the only progressive party in the UK. And he takes "full responsibility" for the election. Labour must not get into the blame game.

Whoever wins the leadership election, they will have Brown's "full, unequivocal" support. In future, Brown will not do anything other than support the Labour team.

These are the most important quotes. I'll post them in full later.

4.32pm: Brown lays out his credo. He says markets should have morals. Individuals do feel the pain of others. Public services are to be valued.

Because when the strong help the weak, it makes us all stronger.

He says these beliefs make Labour "the greatest fighting force for fairness the country has ever seen".

4.33pm: Brown has finished. Quick summary.

• He accepted "full responsibility" for the election defeat.

• He offered his "full, unequivocal support" to the next leader.

(I'm not sure yet whether that was intended as a dig at Tony Blair. Blair did support Brown when he was in office, although he whacked him viciously in his memoirs a few weeks later.)

4.38pm: We should be getting the results any moment now.

4.39pm: Harriet Harman is on stage now. She starts with a joke about instituting the Harriet Harman institute of political correctness.

Today Labour turns the page to a new chapter. Ahead lies "a momentous challenge". Labour has to defend the services that people rely upon. And Labour has to stop the Tories "rewriting history" and pretending that the recession was Labour's fault.

Every patient treated in a new hospital represents "Labour's legacy". Ditto children who have somewhere to play, and African countries with their debt paid off.

4.42pm: Harman says Labour is strong. It is campaigning on the ground and winning seats. In local council byelections since May, the Tories have won 29% of of the votes. Labour have won 34%. Since the election 35,000 people have joined the party. Half are long-standing supporters who have decided to do more. One member told her.

Iraq drove me out of the party. Nick Clegg drove me back in.

She says Labour has been "strengthened" by the election contest.

The new leader won't be leader of the opposition, she says.

4.43pm: Ann Black, chair of the NEC, invites the candidates on stage.

David Miliband looks very pleased with himself. I haven't seen Ed Miliband yet.

4.44pm: Ed Miliband looks as if he's lost. Seriously.

If he hasn't lost, he must be mighty good at poker.

4.45pm: If David Miliband hasn't won, I'll be amazed, for the look on his face.

4.48pm: Here are the figures for the first round:

David Miliband

Union members: 9.182

Individual members: 14.688

MPs and MEPs: 13.910

Total: 37.78

Ed Miliband

Union members: 13.821

Individual members: 9.978

MPs and MEPs: 10.526

Total: 34.33

Ed Balls

Union members: 3.411

Individual members: 3.371

MPs and MEPs: 5.013

Total: 11.79

Andy Burnham

Union members: 2.825

Individual members: 2.849

MPs and MEPs: 3.008

Total: 8.68

Diane Abbott

Union members:

Individual members:

MPs and MEPs:

Total: 7.24

Diane Abbott has been eliminated.

4.50pm: Ed Miliband has won. He is the new Labour leader

4.53pm: So I was wrong.



Lesson 1: Ed Miliband is leader of the Labour party.

Lesson 2: Don't play him at poker. He made a good job of hiding that.

4.55pm: I'll post the figures in full when I get them.

4.58pm: Ed Miliband is speaking now.

He thanks them for the "amazing honour" of being elected. He joined when he was 17. He never in his "wildest dreams" expected to be leader.

He wants to repay the trust put in him. And he will do so by uniting the party.

He thanks his rival candidates.

He turns to his brother. "David, I love you so much as a brother." He has "so much" respect for him. David taught the party that it can reach out to the community and that it can be a serious party of government.

Turning to Ed Balls, he says Balls's campaign has been a testament to his strength. "Every Tory minister is quaking in his boots" at the prospect of having Balls shadow them.

(It's a bit like a headmaster's report at speech day, this.)

He also congratulates Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott. She was "so right to run", he says.

5.00pm: Here are some more details on the voting figures:

David Miliband won the first round with 37.78% to Ed Miliband's 34.33% - Diane Abbott was knocked out, and the second preferences of her voters redistributed.

In the second round, David won again, with 38.89%. Ed got 37.47%. Andy Burnham was knocked out and his votes redistributed.

In the third round, David won with 42.72% to Ed's 41.26%. Ed Balls was knocked out and his votes redistributed, leaving only two candidates.

In the final round David fell behind with 49.35%. Ed won with 50.65%.

5.01pm: Ed Miliband says he wants to use the talents of everyone, no matter who they supported. He wants Labour to move together as a team.

He thanks his partner Justine. And his constituency party that chose him in 2005 (reminding us that he has only been an MP for five years.)

And he thanks his army of supporters. Labour must be a party that attracts "hundreds of thousands of young people who see us as their voice".

He says he has a fantastic deputy, Harriet Harman.

And he wants to thank Gordon Brown. "There are millions of people ... who have better lives thanks to the work of Gordon Brown in government. There can be no better legacy than that."

Labour lost the election badly, he says. The party has to change. He "gets it". A new generation has taken over.

5.04pm: Ed Miliband says he understands people's concerns about immigration, about housing, about university education, and about Iraq. "I know that we have to change."

Labour also has to inspire people with their vision of a good deficit.

He says government does have to do something about the deficit. But it has to inspire people with a vision of a good society.

Society must be more equal, he says.

Britain also needs a new type of politics. He will support the coalition when it is doing the right thing, and oppose it when it is doing the wrong thing.

I believe in Britain. Today's generation turns a page, because a new generation has stepped forward.

The new Labour leader, Ed Miliband, embraces his brother, David, after the result was announced Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

5.10pm: Here's a quick summary.

• Ed Miliband is the new leader of the Labour party. He beat his brother, David, by 1.3% percentage points, with a strong showing in the union section of the electoral contest playing a large part in his victory. Diane Abbott came last, followed by Andy Burnham and then Ed Balls.

• Miliband told his party that it needs to change. In a short speech celebrating his victory, he said that he represented "a new generation" in politics. Labour had to recognise that it lost the election badly. Voters thought the government was not addressing their concerns. "I get it," he said.

Andy Burnham Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA

5.13pm: Andy Burnham has issued this statement.

This election has been good for the Labour party - it has been conducted in a constructive spirit and thousands of members have been able to take an active part of the debate. Ed Miliband is a worthy winner and has my full support as a new generation takes Labour forward and makes this coalition a one-term government. What this contest has shown is that there is no ideological divide. Strong and united, Labour's first task now is to take the fight to this coalition government, to provide a credible and principled alternative to these cuts and to win back the trust and support of the British people.

5.20pm: Peter Hain has just been defending Labour's electoral college on Sky. He said that more people took part in the contest than in any Tory leadership election contest.

5.21pm: I've just had an email from Ladbrokes. They think Ed Miliband's election increases the chances of the Tories winning the next election.

[Labour] are now 13/8 to beat the Conservatives, compared to 6/4 prior to the leadership election result. The news will worry many in the party, which elected the former energy secretary as its leader, despite his older brother David being the front runner throughout the contest. The Conservative Party are now 4/9 from 1/2 to gain most seats at the next election.

5.30pm: The Labour party has put out a statement from Ed Miliband.

Today a new generation has stepped forward to change our party. We are united in our mission to transform Labour so that, once again, we stand up for the hardworking majority who play by the rules and want a less divided and more prosperous Britain. I know we have a lot of work to do. The journey starts today.

Labour says that after four rounds of voting Ed Miliband won with 175,519 votes. David Miliband received 147,220 votes.

The full results are available on the Labour's website.

Lib Dem deputy leader, Simon Hughes. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

5.34pm: Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, has put out a statement welcoming Ed Miliband's election.

It is good to hear that he intends to practise a new politics of working across party boundaries in the national interest. The country has a tough time ahead and it will be vital that he wakes up to the challenge that Britain faces. As leader he must recognise that his party can no longer remain head-in-the sand deficit deniers. Much has to be done. We have to restore Britain's reputation around the world, which was broken by a foreign policy under Tony Blair. And we must restore our economy, broken by the boom and bust of Gordon Brown. I also hope he will work to help clean up politics, end vested interests and as a leader elected by the alternative vote, I call on him to support the cross-party campaign for a fairer voting system from now until the referendum next May.

5.39pm:

5.44pm: Labour MPs and MEPs have to declare publicly how they vote. These figures are now on the party's website.

5.53pm: Almost every Labour MP that I've heard being interviewed since the result came out has been asked to justify the unions having a third of the votes in the electoral college. That's because David Miliband won in the MPs' section of the electoral college and the individual members' section, and Ed only won because of the margin of his victory in the union section.

Here are the key figures from the final round.

MPs and MEPs

David Miliband: 17.812%

Ed Miliband: 15.522%

Individual members

David Miliband: 18.135%

Ed Miliband: 15.198%

Members of unions and affiliated organisations

David Miliband: 13.4%

Ed Miliband: 19.934%

The Labour MPs who have been asked about this have pointed out that union members vote individually, and that the unions have always been a part of the Labour party. On Sky, Lord Kinnock has also defended the right of union members to be involved.

They are not people from Saturn. They are our fellow citizens.

6.02pm: Lord Kinnock has just said that support from Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson could have cost David Miliband the election.

"It could have made enough difference," he said, referring to the way Mandelson and Blair appeared to endorse Miliband.

Mandelson and Blair never said explicitly that they were backing David Miliband. But they made it fairly obviously that they would be ticking their box and, in his autobiography - which came out on the day the ballot papers started to arrive through the post - Blair wrote warmly about David Miliband and attacked the political stance associated with Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.

6.06pm: Lady Warsi, the Conservative chairman, has issued a statement congratulating Ed Miliband but pointing out that he did not apologise for the part he played in the "mess that the country has been left in", the BBC reports in its live blog.

6.14pm: Here's some more Labour reaction to the result.

From Yvette Cooper

Both David and Ed got very strong support in every section. What will matter now is that the party will unite. I think Ed will be able to unite the party in order to do that.

From Lord Kinnock

I told him 'Don't be leader of the opposition for long, because that's pure purgatory - the best way out of that is to get elected'.

From David Blunkett

We've never seen anything quite like what we've had, with two brothers neck and neck. These are brothers. They're blood brothers. They can't afford to fall out in the way we had with Tony and Gordon, and neither can we.

Labour Party leadership candidate Ed Balls. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

6.16pm: And here is Ed Balls describing how the five leadership candidates were told the result.

We were all stood there, the five of us, with Harriet Harman and Ray Collins, the general secretary, and Ray said 'You have all done brilliantly. Ed Miliband, you have won.' In a sense it was a relief for everyone to know the final result and David and Ed hugged straight away. We saw the numbers afterwards but the first we knew was Ed.

6.27pm: David Cameron has put out a statement congratulating Ed Miliband.

Congratulations to Ed Miliband. I was Leader of the opposition for four years and know what a demanding but important job it is. I wish him and his family well.

6.28pm: I've just seen Lady Warsi's statement in full. (See 6.06pm.)

The Conservative chairman has sought to depict him as the union's candidate.

Ed Miliband wasn't the choice of his MPs, wasn't the choice of Labour party members but was put in to power by union votes. I'm afraid this looks like a great leap backwards for the Labour party.



For reference, the figures for the final round of voting show that 140 MPs voted for David Miliband and 122 voted for Ed.

Lord Tebbit: It is time for disciplined thought and action Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

6.36pm: Ed Miliband has won a surprise endorsement. Lord Tebbit was written a post on his blog saying that he has the best chance of recovering the votes that Labour has lost.

The narrowness of David Miliband's defeat and his brother Ed's victory says more about the closeness of their views than any deep split in the Labour party at the present time. Ed is the man most likely to get Labours 5 million lost voters back to the polls. He is unlikely to neglect the chance to feed off the discontented Lib Dem supporters, but he will not neglect to strengthen the party's natural constituency.

For years Tebbit has been urging successive Tory leaders to adopt a "core vote" strategy. (And for years Tory leaders have been taking little or no notice.) Tebbit is praising Miliband because he thinks Miliband is adopting a similar strategy on the left. "Labour's answer to Norman Tebbit"? I'm not sure that's really the endorsment Miliband wants, but he probably won't be reading the Telegraph this evening.

6.39pm: My colleague Jonathan Freedland has written his verdict for Comment is Free. He agrees with Lord Kinnock. (See 6.02pm)

David Miliband suffered similarly, compromised by his status as the candidate of Blairite continuity. Tony Blair's not-so-coded backing for him, along with Peter Mandelson's warning that his younger brother would lead Labour into an "electoral cul-de-sac", may well have been a kiss of death.

7.04pm: I'll be wrapping up soon. There's nothing more exciting in politics than a close vote and today was particularly dramatic, not least because the Miliband brothers did a pretty good job of disguising the result as they came into the hall. They certainly fooled me. Was Ed Miliband just playing it cool? Or did he actually look miserable because he had suddenly grasped the challenges facing him? I have no idea.

David Miliband and Ed Miliband have often been portrayed through a right/left prism. That's misleading, as Sunder Katwala explains here at Next Left. The Tories are now trying to frame it as a contest between the MPs' choice and the unions choice. This analysis works better, but I don't think it tells the full story.

To me, it looks more like an election about the past and the future. Ed Balls did badly because he was associated with Gordon Brown. David Miliband was damaged by his association with Tony Blair. Ed Miliband is only four years younger than his brother. But he entered parliament four years later, and he is not publicly associated with the Blair/Brown years in the way that his brother is. Ed Miliband said the party was voting for a new generation. I think he was right.

At the end of the Lib Dem conference I wrote about the things I'd learned. Today it's easier to think of the things we need to learn. Will David Miliband stay in politics for long? Who will be Ed Miliband's shadow chancellor? Will he really take Labour to the left? Will the "Red Ed" label stick? (And if it does, will it damage him, or could it help him?) Will he really turn out to be as good a communicator as his supporters think? Will he reach out to the Lib Dems? And will he turn out to be any good at PMQs?

By the end of this conference he might have a better answer to some of these questions. In the meantime, here's a summary.

• Ed Miliband is the new Labour leader. The Labour party has "skipped a generation", ignoring the polls that say David Miliband would have made floating voters more likely to back the party. Instead the party has put its faith in a relative newcomer, who has only been in parliament for five years, on the basis of his charisma, his communication skills and his determination to show that Labour has learned from the mistakes of the past.

• The Tories have portrayed him as an agent of the trade unions. They have pointed out that he only won because of his strong showing in the trade unions section of the electoral college. Labour MPs have defended the system, although it remains to be seen whether at some point this will lead to demands for a genuine one-member, one-vote leadership contest.

• Gordon Brown has said he takes full responsibility for Labour's election defeat. In a heartfelt speech, he also said he would be totally loyal to his successor.

That's it for today. I'll be blogging again tomorrow morning, when Ed Miliband will be interviewed on the Andrew Marr show.