Ed Miliband - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Born in University College Hospital on Hunter Street, Camden, Miliband is the younger son of Polish Jewish immigrants. His mother Marion Kozak, a human rights campaigner and early CND member, survived the Holocaust thanks to being protected by Poles. His father, Ralph Miliband, was a Belgian-born Marxist academic of Polish origin who fled with his parents to England during World War II. The family lived on Edis Street, Primrose Hill, north London. David Miliband still lives in the house today.

Ralph Miliband left his academic career at the London School of Economics in 1972 to take up a post at Leeds University as a Professor of Politics. His family moved to Leeds with him in 1973 after he suffered a heart attack, and Miliband attended Featherbank Infant School in Horsforth between 1974 and 1977, during which time he became a fan of Leeds United.

Due to his father's later employment as a roving teacher, Miliband spent two spells living in Boston, Massachusetts, one year when he was seven and one junior high school term when he was twelve. Miliband remembered his time in the US as his one of his happiest, during which he became fan of American culture, watching Dallas and following the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots.

Between 1978 and 1981, Ed Miliband attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Camden and then Haverstock Comprehensive School in Chalk Farm. He learned to play the violin whilst at school, and as a teenager, he reviewed films and plays on LBC Radio's Young London programme as one of its fortnightly "Three O'Clock Reviewers". After completing his O-levels, he worked as an intern to family friend Tony Benn, the MP for Chesterfield.

In 1989, Miliband gained four A Levels (A in maths, an A in English, and Bs in further maths and physics) and entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In his first year, he was elected JCR President, leading a student campaign against a rise in rent charges. In his second and third years, he dropped philosophy, and was awarded an upper second class Bachelor of Arts degree.