On this date in 1969, Edward Samuel Miliband was born in London to Polish Jewish immigrants who fled to England during the Holocaust. His father, Ralph Miliband, was a prominent sociologist and Marxist scholar and educator. His mother was a feminist and human rights activist. He studied politics and economics at Corpus Christi College at Oxford University and earned a master’s in economics at the London School of Economics.
Miliband’s political career began in 1997 as an adviser to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, a post he held until 2002. He then spent several semesters at Harvard as a visiting scholar in the Center for European Studies, where he taught economics. In 2005 he was elected to Parliament as a Labour Party member and the next year became parliamentary secretary to the Cabinet Office under Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 2007, newly elected Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed him to a Cabinet position.
After Brown left office in 2010 as prime minister, Miliband and his brother David Miliband both sought to lead the Labour Party, with Ed winning by a narrow margin in 2010. At 40 he was the youngest Leader of the Opposition ever elected. He served until May 2015 when the party lost its majority to the Conservatives. Remaining in the House of Commons, he took a backbench role.
Miliband married jurist Justine Thornton in 2011 and they have two sons together. He also co-hosts a popular podcast, “Reasons to be Cheerful,” with radio presenter Geoff Lloyd.
