Ed Miliband, new Labour Leader

I've got to quickly mark the news of the announcement of the next Labour leader. Yesterday afternoon the results were announced of the five-month long leadership contest. Ed Miliband could now potentially follow in the footsteps of those other Labour leaders who became PM:  Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, James Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Clement Attlee and James Ramsay MacDonald.

So far, so sound-bitey I think. He seems a good fellow but it is hard to know at this stage what his leadership will mean for the party. The most annoying thing on Day 2 is the way that the media have latched on the 'Red Ed' title, resulting in the statements from Miliband about protecting the 'middle-classes'. We always seem to have to have an adversarial set-up in the media. I shall watch with interest. In the meantime, links to more lucid analysis of this result below:

Meet the New Boss ... Same as the Old Boss?

‘Red Ed’? The younger Miliband will go straight for the middle ground

Why Ed Miliband's core instinct is to battle for the middle ground

Ed Miliband shouldn’t have won—but it might work out anyway

p.s. a number of visitors have landed here asking whether Ed Miliband is Asian. Answer: no, he very much isn't (as far as we know) - he is Prof Ralph Miliband's son, his family background in British-Polish-Jewish. Read more in this nice Guardian piece.