Ed Miliband: would you?

Take him seriously again, I mean. For the former Labour leader is, after a long and agonised period of self-imposed exile, definitely back. In the last week alone he has popped up on Newsnight passionately denouncing Theresa May’s courtship of Donald Trump, attacked the latter’s attitude to human rights in the Commons after calling for an emergency debate with Nadhim Zahawi on the US president’s travel ban, and generally acquired a sufficiently high profile for the feminist website Jezebel to discuss whether its writers would … um, like to form a coalition with him. (Verdict; mostly yes, if only because “I like his hair”). Whisper it, Miliband is hot again.

It would be fair to say, however, that much of the parliamentary Labour party is not feeling it. There are three outstanding charges blocking his rehabilitation; firstly and most obviously that he led the party to defeat in 2015, secondly that by doing so he unwittingly paved the way for an EU referendum and for Brexit, and thirdly (and for some, most unforgivably) that he inadvertently allowed Jeremy Corbyn to succeed him by altering the rules of Labour leadership contests.

Defeats happen, of course, and blame for the 2015 one arguably lies with the party and not just its leader. But leaving the door open to a Brexit many Labour MPs see as calamitous for their constituents, while saddling them with a leader incapable of coherently opposing it, is harder to swallow. It will be a long time before many are ready to forgive him that triple whammy – while others can’t get past his refusal to vote for military intervention in Syria, at a time when rightly or wrongly they think it might have averted further bloodshed.

But beyond Westminster, it’s different. Theresa May’s borrowing from his agenda of helping hard-pressed families and curbing corporate excess was an early backhanded compliment, suggesting Milibandites may have been further ahead of the curve than is always recognised in spotting the swelling anger of those left behind. He was clearly groping after popular themes, if not embodying them in a way acceptable to British voters.

But more broadly he seems to be enjoying a peculiar phenomenon common to politicians: the weird afterglow that comes of being humanised by defeat. John Major had it, so did William Hague, and Hillary Clinton when Barack Obama beat her to the Democratic nomination (remember the “million cracks in the glass ceiling” speech?). Ed Balls is making a whole career out of his thanks to Strictly Come Dancing. But what it amounts to is a sense that now the worst has happened, they can relax.

No longer weighed down by office, Miliband’s natural sense of humour is showing through and his tendency to self-deprecation once again looks more endearing than weak. He’s morphing back into the person he used to be, one many Labour MPs found far more congenial than his rather aloof brother David. Being able to pick and choose when to intervene, rather than having to pronounce on every thankless dilemma, also helps make him look more decisive and statesmanlike. But most importantly, he seems to have found his voice again.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘As a friend told me, both Miliband boys were raised with a moral seriousness of purpose.’ Ed and David Miliband. Photograph: Paul Grover/Rex/Shutterstock

Ed Miliband took defeat harder than most, tortured not just by what-ifs but also by a deep sense of pointlessness. As a friend told me, both Miliband boys were raised with a moral seriousness of purpose and a belief that their place was in public life. Neither found it easy to accept that the public didn’t want them there, and neither would have felt comfortable sloping off to the private sector to make money. David had to move continents to get over it. Only now is it obvious that Ed has, to use that hideous cliche, been on something of a journey too.