On this bright, confident Saturday morning we await the announcement of which Miliband will lead Labour. Whatever the outcome, that between the brothers is the most important relationship within the Labour Party since Tony and Gordon. It remains to be seen if an election proves a better way to resolve conflicting ambition than a private deal.

Miliband of Brothers (More 4, 24 September) was, for a TV programme on a political theme, appropriately disappointing – it promised much but delivered very little. This is the nature of the docurama genre. The combination of spoof drama bracketed with interviews with college contemporaries, friends, associates and journalists just doesn’t work that well – it’s even harder than usual to decide what’s true. When Boris Met Dave, from the same stable, examining the motivation of David Cameron and Boris Johnson from their Bullingdon Club days, was also a let down – neither show was anything like as funny as the trailer promised. The combination of fact, fiction and faction is neither fish nor foul. 

The format places comedy in a straight jacket. Promising situations developed in the script go nowhere largely because of the need to remain within the realms of possibility when the big laugh demands the ridiculous – Dave and Ed smacking each other with giant frying pans, Ed feeding Dave’s hamster to the neighbour’s Labrador, Dave locking his irritating little brother in a box containing a dozen spiders. We wanted brothers behaving badly, the best we got was a couple of nerdy boys taking the “pisch” out of Tony Benn. The trailer suggested something more but, as is often the case these days, all the best bits were in the trailer.

As documentary, Miliband of Brothers, didn’t add much to the sum of human knowledge. There were some little snippets but nothing of great substance. Tony Benn told us that David is very clever. Andrew Rawnsley repeated things he had already written elsewhere but explained Ed’s nickname in Tony Blair’s Downing Street (“The Emissary from the Planet Fuck”) as a backhanded compliment – Ed, it seems, is a decent guy. All rather ‘so what?’ Enter Neil Kinnock, who was the only person who put the boot in. Somewhere along the line Miliband D has upset the Old Windbag who went on to make the kind of comments that either new leader will find massively unhelpful. He of all people should know better but his ability to carry a grudge and be personally malevolent was always one of the manifest failings that dogged his leadership. For others loyalty and discretion prevailed over ego.

It was left to Oona King, also a former MP struggling for relevance, to raise the question which is now make or break to Labour’s immediate future. Can the brotherly relationship ever be the same after they chose to run against each other in this contest?

For anyone who has observed a two sibling set up from the outside the remarkable thing about the Milibands seems not that there is a degree of rivalry, but that they seem to get on so well when hating each other’s guts would appear more the norm. But the fact is that Labour needs the Milibands to be closer than ever. It is no exaggeration to say that what goes on between the brothers will make or break the future of the party in the short term. If disaster is to be avoided they must, when they meet after the result is declared, agree on the following:

• Neither campaign had all the answers but both had some good points to make about Britain in 2010 and the movement.
• They must come to terms with the fact that Labour was not cheated from power by the coalition deal, Labour lost the election and lost badly. Understanding and accepting why it lost is essential to moving forward. The party is showing marked reluctance to come to terms with the reasons for its defeat.
• Unless everyone is wrong, including the pundits, the bookies and the brothers themselves,  and the result is decisive whoever wins will not enjoy a commanding mandate – this more than anything else demands an inclusive leadership style.
• They must accept and understand that the civil war in which the brothers found themselves on different sides must end and do everything they can to make it so.
• They must also accept that, even if they desire and work for an end to hostilities, others in the party may attempt to continue the divisions to cling to their own relevance or maintain their power base. The brothers must be sufficiently close to ensure that ‘people close to David’ or ‘people close to Ed’ are not allowed to destabilise the ship for their own ends.
• They need to accept that things get said in campaigns that maybe shouldn’t be said. It would be superhuman were it not so. They need to accept that’s what trying to win is about – neither would be much of a leader had they not tried to win the leadership election.
• They must accept that if they come to feel that they can’t move on they should move out – whoever loses has had their chance.  

It is a serious situation in which Labour now finds itself. A renewed bout of civil war at the top of the Party will see Labour out of power until an untainted generation can emerge – that’s too long for the people Labour seeks to serve. So the good of both the Party and the country requires David and Ed to turn their first and second place votes into a mandate for ‘Team Miliband’. Labour doesn’t need Tony and Gordon any more and it certainly doesn’t need JR and Bobby, it needs Jack and Bobby – Kennedy or Charlton, but no less resilient a family will do.