LABOUR has done a smart thing by electing Ed Miliband as its new leader, said the Guardian in an editorial Monday. Excerpts: Of the three candidates with the most serious chance of succeeding Gordon Brown, Mr Miliband was by some distance the least divisive. While David Miliband and Ed Balls, for all their talents, and to some extent unfairly, were perceived as continuity candidates for the Blair-Brown divisions, Ed Miliband was not. It was a contest with none of the destructive bitterness of Labour leadership elections of the 50s or the 80s – only the Miliband fratricide was truly sulphurous this time. The race did the party some real good. Mr Miliband, decent and open-minded, was many people's first choice and most people's second. As such, he has the potential to be the unifying leader that his brother or Mr Balls might not have been. Time will tell if the party has chosen a soft option. But, in earlier times, Clement Attlee reached the Labour leadership in a similarly unexpected way. And look what happened to him. Mr Miliband won because he is relatively new and offers a sharper social justice focus without the contortions of the past. He also succeeded because none of his rivals managed to make a resounding leadership case. In the hall on Saturday it was hard to know if the party or Mr Miliband was the more surprised at his win. But he is leader now and, though the next election may be long distant, the tough stuff starts now. Tomorrow's speech must make a credible critique of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition and put down markers on what the Miliband Labour party would do instead. Striking the right note on the deficit is essential. Labour needs to emerge from this week confident that it made the right choice. Good luck to Mr Miliband. Party politics is suddenly serious again. __
