Ed Miliband was dating senior BBC economics journalist Stephanie Flanders when he was at the Treasury
Mr Miliband was still seeing Stephanie Flanders, who at the time was BBC Newsnight’s economics editor, until as late as March 2004, years later than previously thought
According to The Telegraph, Ed Miliband was in a relationship with a senior BBC economics journalist while working at the Treasury, it has emerged after his wife admitted being “furious” about the “secret” romance.
Mr Miliband was still seeing Stephanie Flanders, who at the time covered economics for BBC Newsnight, until as late as March 2004, years later than previously thought.
At the time he was a special adviser to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The news was disclosed by Justine Thornton, Mr Miliband’s wife, in an interview with the Daily Mirror on Thursday.
She said: “I first met Ed when I went to a friend’s house for dinner. I was interested in him, I thought he was good looking and clever and seemed to be unattached. But we just went down a conversational cul-de-sac.
“Apparently we had nothing in common. He wanted to talk about economics – one of my least favourite subjects.”
She continued: “None of our conversations went anywhere. Then I found out he was secretly going out with the woman who had invited us for dinner. I was furious.
“I bumped into him a couple of times after that, but we didn’t start seeing each other for at least a year.”
It had been thought that Miss Flanders and Mr Miliband were in a relationship in the mid-1990s, around the time that Miss Flanders was with Ed Balls, now the shadow Chancellor.
Miss Thornton did not put a date on the dinner party in her interview. But a 2011 biography said that the pair met at the dinner party in March 2004.
Commenting on the interview, John Rentoul, a leading political commentator and biographer of Tony Blair, asked in a post on Twitter why Miss Thornton had not said that the host of the dinner was Miss Flanders.
Miss Flanders, 46, joined BBC Newsnight in 1999 as its economics correspondent, rising to become the programme’s economics editor. She became the BBC’s economics editor in 2008. She left in November 2013 to take up a job with American bank JP Morgan.
BBC guidelines state: “Staff must declare any active political involvement on the Declaration of Personal Interest form.
“In some cases it will also be appropriate to declare the political activities of family members or other close personal contacts.”
A BBC spokesman declined to say if Miss Flanders had informed the corporation at the time of her relationship with Mr Miliband, saying: “We wouldn’t comment on former staff members personnel details.”
Mr Miliband was a special adviser to Mr Brown between 1997 and 2002. He then spent a year at Harvard University on sabbatical before returning as the chairman of the Treasury’s council of economic advisers in January 2004.
A Labour spokesman declined to comment, and Miss Flanders declined to respond to requests from The Telegraph for comment.
The Cabinet Office said it did not believe there was a requirement for special advisers to declare their relationships with journalists.
Miss Flanders was asked in 2011 if there was “any truth in the rumour that you dated both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband”.
She replied: “I’m not going to go there. It’s widely known that I took Ed Balls’s job at the FT, and it’s true that I’ve known these people for a long time, and people can draw their own conclusions.
“But whether or not you’ve sort of snogged them at whatever moment just seems completely mad.”
Asked if it made it harder to give “a proper grilling” as a journalist to “old friends or lovers”, he said: “I don’t think so.
“If you think back on your past friendships and/or relationships, these things can go either way. You could be tougher!
“I know Jeremy Paxman has said he actively shuns friendships with politicians. I think I see all these people less than I might have done, because I don’t want to be in that situation of having been for dinner in their house two days before I give them a grilling on Newsnight or whatever.”
Miss Flanders left the BBC in September 2013 to join JP Morgan Asset Management as chief market strategist for Europe, and was replaced by Robert Peston, who at the time was business editor.
Miss Flanders and her partner John Arlidge, a national newspaper journalist, have a son, born in 2006, and a daughter, born in 2008.
BBC guidelines state: “Staff must declare any active political involvement on the Declaration of Personal Interest form.
“In some cases it will also be appropriate to declare the political activities of family members or other close personal contacts.”
A BBC spokesman declined to say if Miss Flanders had informed the corporation at the time of her relationship with Mr Miliband.
He said: “We wouldn’t comment on former staff members personnel details.”