HARRIET HARMAN sent home the Labour faithful from a tumultuous party conference, telling them: “It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions.”

The deputy leader brought down the curtain on a five-day drama – one that saw Ed Miliband pip his brother David to the leadership crown – pledging to replace party naval-gazing with “a laser focus on the future”.

Ms Harman said the five months since the General Election defeat had been “the story of a party which could have given up, but refused to do so”.

She pointed to 35,000 new members since May 6 and said a further 3,000 had joined Labour since Ed Miliband’s triumph was revealed on Saturday, reflecting the excitement it had triggered.

And she said: “The last five days have certainly been dramatic, but we leave Manchester with a new leader and a laser focus on the future.

“There are members to recruit, there are elections to fight, there are cuts to oppose. We have work to do.

“The contest for our leadership is over – the contest for the future of the country begins.”

Ms Harman’s closing speech followed an interview in which she suggested there would be a “very big role for David Miliband” when Labour was back in power, despite his decision to step down.

She also denied Labour had lurched to the left, saying its priorities – support for pensioners, help for families with young children and getting people into work – were mainstream concerns.

Ms Harman said: “Are these left-wing policies or central policies?

They are policies about listening to what’s happening in people’s lives and making sure that the Government is backing them up.”

The question reflected the fears of David Miliband supporters that the unions’ grip on Labour was its strongest for 20 years and that the party was not listening to voters who, polls suggest, preferred their candidate.

Alarm also focused on a comment by former party leader Lord Kinnock, who hailed Ed Miliband’s victory by telling a rally: “We’ve got our party back.”

In interviews since his well-received conference speech, Ed Miliband has stated he is in favour of raising taxes by more – and cutting spending less – than Alistair Darling, Chancellor in the last Labour government.

And he also made another break with the Blair-Brown era with a willingness to talk of his commitment to socialism, although not the version favoured by his Marxist father, Ralph.

Mr Miliband said: “It is not his form of socialism, it is my form of socialism – which is a more fair, more just, more equal society.

And that is the path that I will want to take our party on.”

David Cameron signalled the likely Tory attack at their conference next week, accusing Mr Miliband of ignoring the seriousness of the deficit “because it’s pessimistic to talk about it”.

After the Conservative conference, attention will quickly switch back to Labour and the intense battle for senior Shadow Cabinet posts.

In a possible repeat of the Miliband-v-Miliband drama, defeated leadership candidate Ed Balls is increasingly tipped to lose out to his own wife, the popular work spokeswoman Yvette Cooper.

■ Labour have a slender lead over the Conservatives, according to a poll released last night.

As Ed Miliband ends his first week as Labour leader, support for his party is unchanged at 37 per cent while the Conservative Party has dropped two points to 35 per cent, according to the ICM survey for the Guardian. The Liberal Democrats are on 18 per cent.