Had things been different, he could have been Prime Minister - instead Ed Miliband has been relegated to TV flu guy.

A picture of the former Labour leader blowing his nose has been used by US TV channel NBC to illustrate a feature about cold and flu season.

Image: The original picture taken at a Labour Party conference

Despite meeting with Barack Obama at the White House in 2014, it seems Mr Miliband is so anonymous in America that the image from the picture agency Getty was used as a stock image without anyone realising who he is.

The photograph was taken at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool in 2011 and can be found on the picture agency's website when typing in the search term sneeze.

Flu season is the worst! Tonight on @NBCNightlyNews... everything you need to know about this year's flu:( https://t.co/asn5L2Yrq5 — Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) December 19, 2016

It was used for a feature in NBC nightly news discussing "everything you need to know about this year's flu".