David Miliband sticks the knife in: Ed’s older brother demands ‘deep and honest thinking’ after humiliating Labour defeat

• Ex foreign secretary quit Parliament after Ed beat him to the leadership
• He moved to the US to work for the refugee charity International Rescue
• Following Labour’s defeat David took to Twitter to offer commiserations
• He only mentioned his brother after ‘great colleagues’ and ‘Labour teams’ 
• Added that Labour needed to ‘rebuild progressive politics’ in the UK

David Miliband tonight demanded ‘deep and honest thinking’ in the Labour Party to recover from the humiliating defeat suffered at the hands of his brother.

The former foreign secretary quit Parliament two years after Ed beat him to the Labour leadership in September 2010 following the party’s last crushing election defeat.

Mr Miliband, who moved to the US to take up a job at the refugee charity International Rescue and has pointedly refused to rule out a return to Westminster, said Labour needed to ‘rebuild progressive politics’.

Writing on Twitter he said his ‘heart goes out to great colleagues who lost seats’ – in reference to his former allies Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy in Scotland – as well as to ‘Labour teams who worked so hard’ for victory. Mr Miliband then added: ‘And of course to Ed.’

David has repeatedly left open the possibility of returning to frontline politics. In December he told the Financial Times: ‘You just don’t know, do you?’

Today JK Rowling, the author and a major donor to the Labour Party, on Friday tweeted: ‘I can’t be the only person currently obsessing over what’s going through David Miliband’s head, can I?’

The brothers have struggled to heal the rift between them following Ed’s decision to join the Labour leadership race after Gordon Brown’s defeat in 2010.

Over the last five years Ed has faced constant accusations that he had ‘stabbed his brother in the back’ by standing against him.

The elder Miliband’s pointed remarks on Twitter came after a series of Blairite former ministers attacked Labour’s disastrous campaign.

The bloodletting began in earnest after a humiliated Ed Miliband resigned, saying he was ‘truly sorry’ for his party’s appalling performance.

Mr Miliband admitted full responsibility for Labour’s worst result since 1987, losing 26 seats and suffering a near wipeout in Scotland.

Throughout the day Blairite ministers came out to savage the failed leader, who famously stabbed his brother David in the back to snatch the top job five years ago.

John Reid, David Blunkett, Jack Straw, Charles Clarke and Jacqui Smith – all Cabinet ministers under Tony Blair – demanded a return to the centre ground if Labour is ever to return to power.

Former Home Secretary Lord Reid said Labour had lost because it was ‘on the wrong side’ of all the major arguments – including the economy and immigration.

In a cataclysmic night for Mr Miliband, the party lost a series of high-profile figures including Scottish leader Jim Murphy and – most shockingly – Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls.

Despite all the effort Labour only managed to take two seats off the Conservatives. They took 10 from the Tories but lost eight to them.

Mr Miliband’s final tally was 232, an astonishing 99 seats lower than the Tories – a result which was beyond the Labour Party’s worst nightmare.

Announcing his resignation at noon, Mr Miliband said deputy leader Harriet Harman would take over as interim leader until a replacement is chosen in late July or early August.

Miss Harman then said she too would then step down as deputy leader – bringing an end to a decades-long career in frontline politics.

The outgoing Labour leader told party supporters he took ‘absolute and total responsibility’ for the result.

‘Britain needs a strong Labour Party, Britain needs a Labour Party that can rebuild after this debate so we can have a government that stands up for working people again,’ he said.

‘And now it is time for someone else to take forward the leadership of this party.

‘So I am tendering my resignation… I want to do so straight away because the party needs to have an open and honest debate about the right way forward, without constraint.’

Rather than breaking through as forecast by opinion polls, Labour saw losses to the Tories in key marginal seats and failed to win the Conservatives most vulnerable constituencies.

But Mr Miliband vowed: ‘We have come back before and this party will come back again.’

Miss Harman said: ‘With a new leadership team in place, after what has undoubtedly been a serious defeat, the Labour Party will be best placed to be the strong opposition this country needs – defending our NHS and our public services, and fighting for fairness, equality and social justice.’

Things were so bad for Labour that leftwing pressure group Compass said the party should consider changing its name to something more appropriate for the twenty-first century.

Blairites are angry with the direction in which Mr Miliband has taken the party since he beat his centrist brother David to the top job in 2010.

They point out that Tony Blair is still the only Labour leader to have won an election since 1974 – and that all other leaders who have attempted to be more left-wing than him have failed.

Lord Reid launched a furious assault on Mr Miliband for taking Labour in the ‘wrong direction’ an failing to appeal to moderate centre ground voters.

He said the public ‘thought we were in the wrong side of the argument on every issue’. Labour had been ‘on the wrong side of all the major arguments – our economic competence, on the question of creating wealth, on the question of immigration, on the question of reform of the public services.’

He insisted that just changing leader wouldn’t help the party’s electoral fortunes unless it changes direction and asks why it won three ‘stunning’ victories under Mr Blair.

‘The worst mistake we could make is by thinking by changing the captain on the bridge could address the issues,’ he said.

‘Look at recent history, and ask why did Labour win three stunning victories, capturing Scotland, Wales and England, and therefore were able to form a government, and why that has gone so badly wrong since 2007, 2010. I think we shifted direction, I think we changed it.

‘We have to get back to the position where Labour attracts votes across classes, across regions.’

Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who was Chief Whip under Mr Blair, pointed to Labour’s failure to win seats in Middle England

‘What experience shows us is we win government from the centre of the political spectrum and I think that’s where we need to be,’ she said.

David Blunkett, former Home Secretary under Mr Blair, warned of the danger of ‘reverting to the far left’.

‘Instead of this weekend us going into a kind of bunker, we’ve got to examine these results very carefully indeed and learn the lessons of reaching out with One Nation politics,’ she said.

‘We must not revert to the far left, we must not allow ourselves to turn inwards.’

Charles Clarke, the former Education Secretary, said: ‘It’s just not enough to say we’re not Tories, vote for us.’

Jack Straw, former Foreign Secretary, said: ‘It is grim and it’s particularly very very serious situation’, adding that Mr Miliband had ‘pulled us back rather than pushed us forward’.

Labour MP for Vauxhall Kate Hoey said the party had ‘gone away from wanting to appeal to the country’ and gone ‘back in its comfort zone’.

‘We’ve become tribal again. We need a huge look at the party.’

Outspoken Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk – a serial critic of Mr Miliband – said: ‘Obviously we got things wrong or we wouldn’t be in this position we’re in.’

Labour had ‘the wrong policies, the wrong personnel running the campaign, the wrong approach to the election campaign’, he said.

Slough MP Fiona McTaggart said Labour needed to reach out to voters outside their core and be the ‘party of ambition as well as the party of work’.

Labour MP for Bassetlaw John Mann compared Labour’s defeat to its 1983 calamity.

He wrote on Twitter: ‘In 1983 immediately after election I wrote “the left that listens is the left that wins” it remains true today.

‘Can’t say that Labour leadership weren’t warned repeatedly – those who even bothered to meet that is. Never hurts to listen.’

John Hutton, appointed by Mr Blair as Work and Pensions Secretary, last night told BBC’s Newsnight: ‘There’s limited appetite for the old school socialist menu which we had on offer; we’ve got to be grown up.’

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