Miliband: No cold war between me and Brown

Mr Miliband, who has been touted as a potential leadership challenger, was asked about relations with Gordon Brown during a press conference in Georgia.

"There are no frosty relations at all", in the government, he said, adding that he and Mr Brown are "working closely".

Mr Miliband talked at length to Mr Brown last week at the height of the Georgia crisis and relations were said to have improved as a result.

But his refusal to praise the Prime Minister by name has led to heightened suspicions about his leadership hopes and some in Government believe he could be more loyal.

In July he wrote an article on Labour's future but made no mention of Mr Brown, who returned from holiday on Tuesday.

The foreign secretary said at the time that he was prompted to write his Guardian article because of the sense of "fatalism" in the party after its defeat in the Glasgow East by-election.

In the article, Mr Miliband urged Labour to find confidence to make its case afresh and since then has refused to back down from his call for a new "vision" for the future of the party.

Following talks in the Georgian capital, Tibilisi, the foreign secretary was asked whether, for all the Cold War rhetoric being used with regards to Georgia, there was a cold war within the Labour Party.

Mr Miliband said: "There are no frosty relations at all within the government. I'm working closely with the prime minister on this issue. Just yesterday we were talking about the next steps - he's been making a major contribution at head of government level.

"This is clearly an international crisis, which the whole of the important work of the Foreign Office is now focussed on, obviously, and the prime minister and I are working closely together on the issue."

Government insiders were more impressed with Culture Secretary Andy Burnham's intervention earlier this week, when he warned against those who were "jostling" for position in the Cabinet.