Underdog Ed Miliband Confident as Britain Votes

London: Written off as a political insider lacking charisma, the leader of the centre-left Labour party Ed Miliband has confounded expectations to put up a tough fight to become Britain's next prime minister.

His party has consistently appeared deadlocked in polls against the main competition: the centre-right Conservative party of Prime Minister David Cameron, long seen as the slicker political operator.

Miliband's awkwardness was summed up in a photograph of him unattractively eating a bacon sandwich -- an image much reproduced in Britain's right-wing press.

"If this is a contest to see how someone can eat a bacon sandwich elegantly, I'm not going to win," Miliband quipped during the campaign.

A 45-year-old father of two married to environmental lawyer Justine Thornton, Miliband has put living standards at the heart of his election campaign, insisting that an economic upturn under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has not reached ordinary people.

Accused by opponents of leading a party with little economic credibility, Miliband has said he would continue cuts to bring down Britain's deficit, but on a gentler scale than the Conservatives.

A crucial difference to Cameron is that Miliband opposes holding a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, something the Conservative leader has promised by 2017 if he is re-elected.

Brother vs brother

Born to Jewish immigrant parents, a Marxist academic father and a campaigning activist mother, Miliband grew up in a London household where prominent left-wing intellectuals from around the world came to dinner.

He became active in student politics while at Oxford University and after a stint as a journalist quickly rose through the ranks of the Labour party.

Miliband later served as energy minister and Treasury advisor in successive Labour governments.

In 2010 he alarmed many in the ranks of the party by entering a contest for the leadership to run against the safer candidate -- his own brother, David Miliband, a protege of former prime minister Tony Blair seen as less left-wing than his younger sibling.

David left politics after his surprise defeat and moved to the United States. Miliband has said their relationship is "healing", casting his victory as a break from the market-friendly "New Labour" of Blair and a return to the party's left-wing roots.

But the challenge, seen by some as "an almost biblical act of fratricide" according to Miliband's biographers, has not been forgotten.

It was brought up again during the campaign by defence minister Michael Fallon who warned Miliband was preparing to "stab the United Kingdom in the back" by cutting the country's nuclear capability -- a charge quickly denied by the Labour leader.

In an interview during the campaign, Miliband was relentlessly questioned about his character and his ability to withstand the challenges ahead.

"You need a toughness in this job. People have thrown a lot at me over four and a half years, but I'm a pretty resilient guy," Miliband said.

"I've been underestimated at every turn. People said I wouldn't become leader and I did. People said four years ago he can't become prime minister. I think I can."