Edward Miliband

Edward Samuel Miliband (born 24 December 1969) was Leader of the Labour Party as well as Leader of the Opposition between 2010 and 2015. He became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North in 2005, being re-elected in 2010, 2015, and 2017], and served in the Cabinet from 2007-10 under Gordon Brown.

Parliament
In early 2005, Miliband resigned his advisory role to HM Treasury to stand for election. Kevin Hughes, then the Labour MP for Doncaster North, announced in February of that year that he would be standing down at the next election due to being diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Miliband was elected on 5 May 2005, with 55.5% of the vote and a majority of 12,656.

Cabinet
On 28 June 2007 Miliband was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, being promoted to the cabinet.

On 3 October 2008, Miliband was promoted to become Secretary of State for the newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change in a cabinet reshuffle. On 16 October, Miliband announced that the British government would legislate to oblige itself to cut greenhouse emissions by 80% by 2050, rather than the 60% cut in carbon dioxide emissions previously announced.

During the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal, Miliband was named by the Daily Telegraph as one of the "saints" of the scandal, due to his claiming one of the lowest amounts of expenses in the House of Commons and submitting no claims that later had to be paid back.

Leadership election
Following the formatio] of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government on 11 May 2010, Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party with immediate effect. On 14 May, Miliband announced that he would stand as a candidate in the forthcoming leadership election. He was nominated by 62 fellow Labour MPs.

Ed Miliband subsequently won the election, the result of which was announced on 25 September 2010, after second, third and fourth preferences votes were counted, achieving the support of 50.654% of the electoral college.

Leader of the Opposition
On 23 January 2013, Miliband stated that he was against holding a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union because of the economic uncertainty that it would create.

At the Labour conference in September 2013, Miliband highlighted his party's stance on the NHS and announced if elected Labour would abolish the bedroom tax. The conference included several 'signature' policies, such as strengthening the minimum wage, freezing business rates, building 200,000 houses a year, lowering the voting age to 16, and the provision of childcare by primary schools between 8am and 6pm. The policy that attracted the most attention was the commitment to help tackle the 'cost-of-living crisis' by freezing gas and electricity prices until 2017 to give time to 'reset the market' in favour of consumers.

In February 2015, Labour pledged to reverse the privatisation of the railways by getting rid of the franchising system.

Since resigning as Labour leader, Miliband has remained on the Backbencher|backbenches.