Fresh-faced and well-spoken, the Foreign Secretary's eloquence – and willingness to take the debate to his opponents – was self-evident when he argued, successfully, that the Government was not compelled to honour its referendum promise over the EU Reform Treaty.

Few, if any, Ministers on the increasingly weary Labour benches can count upon the power of persuasion as one of their primary attributes.

Miliband is, therefore, a rarity – a politician who commands confidence in his views.

The 42-year-old's fluency was also particularly striking when
he rallied to the besieged Prime Minister's defence over the 10p
tax furore and other calamities to beset the Government ahead of yesterday's town hall elections which effectively became a referendum on the Brown premiership.

"We know what's fatal – if we fail to defend the leader, if we lose sight of our core convictions, or we don't follow through on what we have started," declared Miliband.

This statement and his personal challenge to the Tories to debate
the wider issue of poverty pay, served two purposes. It was a call to arms to increasingly fretful Labour MPs. It also saw Miliband professing absolute loyalty to his leader.

Yet, far from dampening down mutterings about Brown's future, such a commanding performance left some on the Labour benches believing that a change of leadership might actually be their party's salvation.

They are mistaken. Miliband's time will come – but not yet.

Unlike the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, loyalty still matters in the Labour movement. Brown is only the fourth leader in the past 25 years – five if you include Margaret Beckett's interim leadership after John Smith's tragic death in 1994.

Labour would only be repeating the damaging mistakes of their opponents if the PM was shown the door less than a year after moving into 10 Downing Street.

The only way that Brown could be removed is if sufficient Labour MPs table a vote of no confidence. Yet the fact that they could not muster 50 names together to oust Tony Blair at the height of the country's outrage over the Iraq war suggests that they are hardly likely to move against a leader who could almost walk on water just eight months ago.

Those who argue in favour of Miliband also overlook the fact that he is, effectively, a Blair "clone' in terms of his mannerisms, his language and approach to policy.

Yet, a year ago, these twitchy MPs were saying Blair's greatest fault was that he is "all style and no substance". Having secured their wish – a leader in Gordon Brown who is "all substance and no style" – they now want to perform another U-turn.

For, while Miliband may smile more in front of the TV cameras, what could he, as Prime Minister, achieve that Gordon Brown can not?

Absolutely nothing. And the reason is this. The public finances are so threadbare that Miliband would
have no money at his disposal to implement his own agenda, even if
he had one.

To raise funds, he would have to begin his premiership by scaling back the public sector, a move that would immediately engender hostility from the unions, and the Labour left, despite such an approach being in the country's best interests.

Miliband might look at ease on the GMTV sofa but he is still a political novice in many respects. Elected to Parliament in 2001, he would be the most politically inexperienced Prime Minister in post-war Britain.

This is why Gordon Brown remains the best leader to take Labour forward, in spite of his inability to understand the public's growing anger over the economy.

Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair went on to win elections after suffering significant setbacks – and bloody noses – following local elections. They also had to overcome, at various stages, faltering economies – or, in Blair's case, the ramifications of the fuel protests of 2000.

However, in many respects, the Prime Minister's reputation would improve significantly if he was prepared, for once, to show some humility and say just one word – "sorry".

That he was "sorry" for the Government's misjudged betrayal of the poor over the 10p tax dodge. "Sorry" for not fulfilling the expectations of the Labour Party. And that he was "sorry" that he has not done more to improve the efficiency of the public services.

If the Prime Minister was prepared to apologise for his shortcomings, he would demonstrate that he was human after all – and also aware of the financial difficulties facing families across the country. Blair
and Thatcher would have done so in these circumstances.

Apologising would not be an admission of failure on Brown's part. It would signal a determination to get things right, and it would also
take the heat out of the Tory Party's increasingly vitriolic and personal attacks.

This is what David Miliband should be advising the Prime Minister if he wants Labour to win the next election. For, if Miliband was to become leader, one of the defining images will be of a young Leeds goalkeeper, then aged 11, letting in seven goals as Benton Park Comprehensive lost a football match 7-6 as his father, watching from the sidelines, held his head in his hands.

It would not be an auspicious new beginning. For the unsafe pair of hands between the posts was none other than David Miliband.

Now is not the time for any more own goals on Labour's part.