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It's Ed.

Betsan Powys | 17:29 UK time, Saturday, 25 September 2010

Here it is - the result of the Labour leadership race in the handwriting of a Welsh MP, one who was there for the big moment, one who wanted the other Miliband to win and one who always has been renowned for having an eye for detail.

He did get one detail wrong in the excitement of the moment: Ed Miliband didn't get a higher proportion of the MPs' votes in the first round, nor in any other. It was the vote of the unions and the so-called 'affiliates' that was consistently higher, nudging him closer and closer to the line that stayed out of his brother's reach - a point that won't be lost on the parties Mr Miliband will now take on. Once Ann Black, the chair of the NEC whose job it was to deliver the result, blow-by-blow, called on her audience here in Manchester to applaud less because there were "quite a few rounds to go", it looked as though Ed might do it thanks to those second preferences - and he did.

A sigh of relief in the Welsh camp?

"Oh Ed will win" said Wayne David MP all those weeks ago at the hustings in Cardiff. His take, moment after Ed Miliband delivered his first - very sober and smile-free speech? That it had come down to the second preferences of just five MPs in the end. In other words it couldn't have been much closer. The referendum result in 1997? 50.3% v 49.7%. The Labour leadership race? 50.65% to 49.35%. Now comes the winning hearts and minds of those who went for the big brother because only he, they thought, was up and ready to take on the Tories - and beat them.

How will he do that? The First Minister is with the new Labour leader now - the most senior elected Labour politician in the land finding out how Mr Miliband intends to knock Mr Jones off that particular perch.

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