In a rare case of sibling rivalry, the Miliband brothers David and Ed are in the race to become the next leader of the Labour party, which lost power in the May 6 election and saw its leader Gordon Brown step down owning responsibility.David was the foreign secretary in the Brown government while the younger brother, Ed, was the Energy minister.The next leader is expected to be in place by the party's annual conference in September and both Milibands have thrown in their hats into the contest.Will the outcome affect family relations?David has insisted that "brotherly love will survive", whoever wins, and added that he was "absolutely confident" the family could "remain strong" whatever happened.He said: "We have talked very frankly and openly to each other because we love each other as brothers. Brotherly love will survive because brotherly love is more important than politics".While David will be 45 in July, while Ed is 40 years old. Both were members of the Cabinet at the same time.    

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Sons of late Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband, the two brother of Jewish origin, studied at Oxford University before taking the plunge into politics.David, a former protege of former prime minister Tony Blair, has said he wants to rebuild the Labour Party as "the great reforming champion of social and economic change in this country".     He told BBC that the party was proud of what it had achieved in government between 1997 and 2010 and recognised that "Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did great things".But he added: "We have to move beyond that because it is a new era". 

He said Labour had to acknowledge that it had "lost this election and lost it badly" and now had to "re-engage with the public and understand, especially in England, why we lost".Ed, a former speech writer for the acting Labour leader Harriet Harman, is less well-known than David, but he is known to have the backing of trade union Unite and has supporters in the Parliamentary Labour Party.