Mark Stuart: No room for nice guys as Ed Miliband takes on the toughest task in politics

As he finalises his first conference speech as leader, Ed Miliband would do well to look back on the illustrious careers of his two Yorkshire-based predecessors for competing visions of how best to run the Labour Party.

Whereas Wilson believed that the priority was to preserve party unity, Gaitskell was a conviction politician, maintaining, like Blair and Kinnock after him, that the only way to lead the Labour Party was by the scruff of the neck.

Gaitskell's total commitment to his principles was never better shown than at the 1960 Labour Party conference held in Scarborough, where he

promised to "fight and fight and fight again to save the party we love" from "pacifists, unilateralists and fellow travellers" Indeed, passions ran so high over the issue of nuclear weapons that 5,000 CND supporters gathered outside the Royal Hotel to shout "Gaitskell must go!"

But Gaitskell's greatest weakness was his stubbornness: when he

believed he had embarked upon the right course of action, it was almost impossible to change his mind. As Denis Healey notes in his memoirs, Gaitskell had "a streak of intolerance" in his nature, believing those who disagreed with him were either "knaves or fools".

Harold Wilson was the complete opposite to Gaitskell. For him, politics was an elaborate game where expediency was paramount: party unity became elevated to a matter of principle.

Although Wilson healed the divisions of the 1950s between the ardent disciples of the left-wing Aneurin Bevan and the right-wing Gaitskell, he flip-flopped so often on issues, particularly on Europe, that the accusation of deviousness stuck to him like a limpet.

In sharp contrast, Gaitskell's strong convictions led him to deliver his "thousand years of history" conference speech in 1962 firmly against entry into the EEC.

Regardless of their competing styles, both Gaitskell and Wilson walked a tightrope in Opposition between preaching economic stability on the one hand, and supporting the narrow sectional interests of the trade union movement on the other. The younger Miliband will feel these competing pressures acutely, not least because he only won the

Labour leadership contest on the back of trade union votes. What happens, for instance, when the Unite union, which propelled Ed Miliband to victory, calls its next strike?

Does he support the strikers, alienating consumers, or come out clearly against such action, risking alienating his grass roots?

In short, the new Labour leader needs to decide whether his party is really interested in returning to power, or whether it is merely a party of protest.

We will discover the answer early on, depending on which Labour deficit reduction plan Ed Miliband supports: the one propounded by the former Chancellor, Alistair Darling, during the General Election campaign – proposing to halve the deficit – or the much gentler one – ducking the tough choices – championed by Ed Balls?

My biggest fear is that Ed Miliband could end up leading an Opposition that becomes temporarily popular by opposing public spending cuts (even Michael Foot led Mrs Thatcher in the polls for most of the early 1980s), but is not viewed in five years' time as a government-in-waiting.

It's perfectly possible that this coalition Government's draconian programme of cuts will end in failure, but what if it doesn't? What if the Cameron and Clegg double act comes out the other side battered but still in one piece? In those circumstances, a soft Labour stance on public spending will end up lacking any credibility come the next

General Election.

More fundamentally, and unlike his elder brother David, I worry that Ed lacks the ability to reassure non-Labour voters that his party won't return to its "tax and spend" past. He would do well to emulate

Harold Wilson, who came across as a safe family doctor figure, forever reminding floating voters that he wouldn't do anything too radical.

Wilson's strategy worked: he emerged victorious in four out of the five General Elections that he fought. Gaitskell, on the other hand, succumbed to over-confidence, and saw his hopes die in Leeds City Hall as his party went down to a heavy defeat at the hands of Macmillan's Tories in 1959.

If the ghost of Gaitskell could reappear, his central advice to Labour's present leader would go something like this: "You come across as too nice, Ed. Don't be afraid to make enemies. March instead to the sound of gunfire."

If Wilson were still alive, he would urge Ed to be pragmatic, and to make a reassuring appeal to those voters who deserted Labour at the last election.

Whichever past Labour leader Ed Miliband chooses to emulate, one thing is certain: he has just taken on the toughest job in British politics. He will quickly learn, perhaps to his cost, that there is no room for nice guys in the Labour Party.

Mark Stuart is a political historian and analyst from York who has written the biographies of John Smith and Douglas Hurd.