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Is David Miliband flying back to UK following Ed Miliband's defeat at the polls?

People scrabble to decide who will lead the party in the event of Ed's defection

Helen Nianias
Friday 08 May 2015 14:56 BST
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Banana man: David Miliband came to regret this fruity moment
Banana man: David Miliband came to regret this fruity moment (Rex Features)

David Miliband is being tipped to make a return to the UK following his brother Ed's disaster at the polls.

Murmurings on Twitter claim that the elder Miliband brother is set to fly from his new home in New York to London, with some saying he has already boarded a flight from JFK.

Ed beat David by just 1.3 per cent after winning the backing of the trade union vote.

Before the leadership election, David was seen as the brother who would appeal more to the centre ground, while his brother was dubbed "Red Ed".

Prior to the leadership bid, David was Tony Blair's Head of Policy and worked as the Foreign Secretary under Gordon Brown.

Following the defeat, David left the shadow cabinet and taught A-level politics in a north London school and joined consultancy form Oxford Analytica. In 2013, he left the UK for New York, where he is the CEO of the International Rescue Committee.

The rivalry between the brothers has been a great source of jokes for pundits over the last five years.

In his victory speech, Ed said: "We lost the election and we lost it badly. My message to the country is this: I know we lost trust, I know we lost touch, I know we need to change.

"Today a new generation has taken charge of Labour, a new generation that understands the call of change."

David has been asked about a return to UK poltics recently, and refused to rule it out. "I don't know," he told Vogue. "I can't say anything, because anything I say plays into the whole narrative."

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