Unions deliver narrow victory, but winner insists 'I am my own man'

Mr Miliband picked up the backing of two shadow cabinet Ministers from Yorkshire – his own neighbour Rosie Winterton, the Doncaster Central MP, and Hilary Benn, MP for Leeds Central.

The only others to back him as first choice were Leeds West's Rachel Reeves, Grimsby's Austin Mitchell and Bradford West's Marsha Singh.

But another seven of the region's MPs joined the supporting line up when other their own first choice candidates were knocked out – including Shadow Housing Minister John Healey and two of Gordon Brown's former aides, Jon Trickett and Michael Dugher.

A string of MPs in South Yorkshire backed David Miliband over Ed, including Caroline Flint, Meg Munn, Denis MacShane, David Blunkett and Angela Smith.

Once the other three candidates had been knocked out, and their votes distributed between the two brothers, Mr Miliband lost out on both MPs' votes – picking up 122 while his brother was backed by 140 – and party members, 66,814 of whom backed David against Ed's 55,992.

But it was the union vote which overwhelmingly went to Ed – picking up 119,405 to his brother's 80,266. It gave the Tories easy ammunition to claim Ed was in hock to the unions.

But in his only interview since winning the election, he said yesterday that he was "nobody's man, I am my own man".