London - Relative youth, a formidable brain, a winning smile and a recently-discovered Russian relative are among the characteristics that distinguish David Miliband from most other politicians. Nick-named "brains," the 44-year-old wonderboy of New Labour rose from being former prime minister Tony Blair's head of policy in the early 1990s to Foreign Secretary and the party's possible future leader.
A smooth operator, Miliband has moved successfully from being an "arch-Blairite" to his top cabinet post under Gordon Brown, surviving the Blair-Brown rivalry by making himself indispensable to the party.
He has frequently been tipped as a successor to Brown, and indeed repeatedly been at the heart of moves to oust the luckless leader - but withdrew from the various plots without apparent damage.
With the party now resigned to sticking with the unpopular Brown until the next general election by the middle of 2010 - and resigned to losing it - Miliband's name has been linked to the job of EU foreign policy supremo, to be created under the Lisbon Treaty.
Asked about his ambitions in a BBC interview recently, he said: "I am not a candidate. I am not available."
Brown has made it clear that he believed Miliband's talents will continue to be required in Britain - even more so if Labour should return to the opposition benches next year.
On the other hand, diplomats believe that a high-profile job in Brussels would not necessarily stop Miliband from resuming a top career in the Labour Party once he returns - following the example of Peter Mandelson, another Labour high-flyer and Brussels returnee.
Miliband, who describes himself as a "family man," has adopted two sons, Isaac James and Jacob, from the US with his American-born wife Louise, a concert violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Both are keen runners and regular participants in charity sports events.
In order to be present at Jacob's birth, Miliband cancelled his appointments with Saudi leaders during a state visit by King Abdullah two years ago.
In a rare comment on his private life, Miliband spoke to Readers Digest magazine in June, 2008, about the adoptions: "Of course, one wonders, is blood thicker than water? But I would throw myself under a moving train for those kids."
He spoke equally movingly earlier this year about a visit to his family grave in the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw where he thanked Poles for saving his mother's life by sheltering her from the Nazis.
Miliband's Jewish mother, Marion Kozak, is from Czestochowa in southern Poland. In 1940, she came to England, via Belgium, with her husband, the Marxist theoretician Ralph Miliband, who died in 1994.
The Miliands lost 80 members of their family in the Holocuast, many at Auschwitz death camp.
"I am fortunate in that it is my parents' generation that encountered fascism, not me," Miliband said during his Polish visit.
David Wright Miliband was born in London on July 15, 1965, and educated at Haverstock Comprehensive School in North London.
He graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and took a postgraduate degree in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MTI) in 1990, where he was a Kennedy Scholar.
Miliband, who wanted to become a bus conductor as a child, was elected to parliament for the first time in 2001 and held several cabinet posts before becoming Foreign Secreatry in 2007.
His younger brother, Ed Miliband, is Energy and Climate Change Secretary in the British cabinet.
Both brothers, during recent separate visits to Russia, met up for tea and cake with Sofia Miliband, a 87-year-old relative who tracked Ed down on a radio phone-in programme during his visit to Moscow earlier this year.
After establishing that the Miliband's great-great grandfather was the brother of her grandfather, Sofia said: "They have the Miliband smile. So I knew right away they were ours."
