Ed Miliband needs to lose the ‘Red Ed’ tag fast

So, Ed Miliband squeaked in by the skin of his teeth, thanks to the unions, and his brother David looked grief-stricken, as well he might. David was the favoured candidate of his colleagues in Parliament and the party, but Labour's electoral system denied him victory. When was anything ever fair between two ambitious brothers?

Ed faces two immediate tasks.

First, he needs to persuade the country that is he is not the leader of a faction within Labour, but of a newly unified all-embracing Labour party. Second, he has less than four weeks to prepare himself for the first set-piece battle in the long campaign to oust the Tories from power in 2015, if not before.

To achieve the first, he needs to lose that 'Red Ed' tag, and quickly. He has started well. He immediately reached out to his beaten rivals, with warm praise for each of them, and he used a Sunday Telegraph article this morning to insist Labour would be on the side of the "squeezed middle" and "everyone who has worked hard and wants to get on".

But the Conservatives are not going to let him forget that he got where he is today thanks to the unions. Watch the Tories - and their supporters in the press - play up the "leftwing paymasters" line for all it's worth.

Which brings us to the upcoming battle with Cameron's Conservatives.

David Cameron has had it relatively easy until now. That is going to change on October 20 when the coalition presents its public spendings cuts.

The first problem for all Leaders of the Opposition (rightly dubbed "the worst job in British politics") is establishing what's called in the trade "the right to be heard" - in other words getting the public to take notice of what you have to say. Why should they listen? You are years away from possible office.

But October 20 could solve that problem for not-so-Red Ed in an instant. The long waited Osborne cuts, which are bound to hurt the poor – and many in the middle – will give him an attentive audience.

It could also be the springboard for a leap in Labour support in the polls. Already close to level pegging in their leaderless state, Ed Miliband could quickly come to attract the label that all leaders cherish – "he looks like a winner".

A word of caution however. While Ed Miliband and his new team can afford to take the war to Cameron's Tories, they will need to be careful not to upset the Lib Dems.

Why? An anecdote might be useful here.

Back in the early 90s, when John Smith was briefly Labour leader, he was passing through an airport - Edinburgh, if the Mole remembers correctly - with one of his aides when he spotted Paddy Ashdown, then the Lib Dem leader.

Smith went over to say hello and engaged Paddy in what appeared to be a long and cheerful conversation. When he eventually came back, his perplexed aide asked "What was that all about?"

To which Smith replied: "You never know when you might need the bastard."

Come 2015 - or earlier, if the wheels come off the coalition - Ed might well need those 'bastards', too, if he is to take Labour back into Downing Street. ·