FOR a man planning to lead Britain, being left off the list of the 100 best-connected men in the country is not great.
It is even less good when the list includes your brother, a junior colleague and your spin doctor.
The snubbed individual in question is Ed Miliband.
The list, published in GQ magazine, aims to identify men exercising influence by their networking not only in politics but also the media, business, sport, PR and culture.
The top 100 are not ranked in order of importance, but politicians who make the cut include Prime Minister David Cameron, London Mayor Boris Johnson and the Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt.
Other names on the list include tennis hero Andy Murray, TV host Stephen Fry, actor Benedit Cumberbatch and PR chief Matthew Freud, described as "probably the best-connected man in Britain".
To Mr Miliband's embarrassment, his brother David, who now heads an international aid charity, is listed for "reinventing himself as a world-stage player" by "schmoozing" with media moguls and bankers, while Ed "struggles to reinvent Labour in time for the next election".
Perhaps adding even more embarrassment is the inclusion of Tom Baldwin, the Labour leader's communications chief, described as "a cross between Alastair Campbell, Hunter S Thompson and Rasputin".
But perhaps Mr Miliband can take solace in the fact there is another omission - Nick Clegg.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article