Ed Miliband has saved Labour from a decade in the political doldrums by suppressing splits that had previously racked the party during periods in opposition, a political historian said yesterday.

Dr Richard Carr, who is leading a special conference on Labour’s “wilderness years” of the 1980s today, told the Star Mr Miliband “deserves credit” for averting a similar crisis after the party’s 2010 election defeat.

He said: “What Miliband has done is avoid the massive split between left and right that was seen in the Labour party in the early ’80s.