A clearly emotional Mr McCluskey accused Mr Miliband of being involved in ?anti-union hysteria?. ?Ed doesn?t need to punch me,? he pleaded.
Mr McCluskey, a former Liverpool dock-worker, has spent a lifetime in unions and is renowned for his hard-left views. He was a shop steward by the age of 19 and was a supporter of the Militant Tendency throughout the 1980s.
He advanced up the ladder of the Transport and General Workers? Union, which in 2007 merged with Amicus to form Unite.
He rose to public prominence in 2009, when he spearheaded a bitter, long-running industrial dispute at British Airways which earned him the nickname ?Red Len? in the tabloid press.
When first elected at Unite?s leader in 2010 at the age of 60, he planned only to serve a single five-year-term, but was persuaded to stand again and will now remain General Secretary until at least 2018.
As the leader of Britain?s biggest trade union and Labour?s biggest donor, Mr McCluskey has grown in confidence during Ed Miliband?s tenure.
He was criticised last year for threatening to disrupt the Olympic Games, which followed tension between Unite and the party in 2011 over a huge pensions strike by more than one-and-a-half million public sector workers.
In an interview in April, shortly after his re-election as General Secretary of Unite, he felt comfortable enough in his position to demand the sacking of Blairite members of the shadow cabinet.
He called for shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne, Labour?s defence spokesman Jim Muprhy and shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander to be axed.
He even suggested he could dictate policy to Mr Miliband. He said: ?It [my re-election] sends a message out to the Labour leaders that I?m going to be here up to and beyond the next election, so any promises and any issues that we?re seeking from them will be implemented if they get into power.?
Until last week, the union?s ambition appears uninhibited. A leaked Unite report disclosed that the union has drawn up plans to install its preferred candidates in another 41 Commons seats for the next election.
Mr McCluskey even boasted about the success that Unite has had in getting its members selected as Labour candidates.
?Because we?re having some success, suddenly these people are crying foul,? he said. ?Well I?m delighted to read it. I?m delighted when Tony Blair and everyone else intervenes because it demonstrates that we are having an impact and an influence and we?ll continue to do so.?
Behind the scenes relations between Labour and Unite have become increasingly fractured. In an indication of the worsening relations, Labour sources said the two men had not spoken directly since the beginning of June.
On Thursday, Tom Watson, deputy party chairman, general election coordinator and a former flatmate of McCluskey, resigned amid allegations that membership lists were fiddled to try to parachute his friend and office manager Karie Murphy into the Falkirk seat.
Unite?s preferred candidate in Falkirk, Karie Murphy, has already been suspended along with the constituency party chair Stephen Deans. Mrs Murphy is a close friend of Mr McCluskey,
As the fall-out from Falkirk continued, Mr Miliband directly questioned the integrity of Mr McCluskey, suggesting he had known about the scandal but failed to act. ?I think that Len McCluskey hasn?t behaved well in this process. I think he should have faced up to the serious concerns that there were in Falkirk.
?I think he had at least some awareness there were deep concerns about what was happening in Falkirk.?
The allegations have clearly hurt Mr McCluskey. ?As far as Unite are concerned, we have done nothing wrong,? he said. ?We are being attacked mercilessly by the media, we?ve had shadow cabinet members saying that Unite have 'overstepped the mark?.
?What does that mean? We asked too many of our members to join the Labour Party. We should have told them that the Labour Party was full up perhaps? It is a nonsense.?
?It is depressing that Labour leaders seem to have a situation where they punch-up union leaders. Ed doesn?t need to punch up me, I?m his friend, I support him.?
Whether their ?friendship? will still stand after the events of the the past week remains to be seen.
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