Blair tells Britain’s Labour: Forget about power if you tack left

But former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott rejected the bleak predictions for Labour if Islington North MP Mr Corbyn became leader and said it was Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq which had undermined support for the party.

Ms Kendall, seen as the favourite of the Blairites, has already had to fend off calls to drop out to give either Mr Burnham or Ms Cooper a clear run against Mr Corbyn after a shock opinion poll suggested he was on course to win.

Ms Thornberry defended her decision to nominate Mr Corbyn despite supporting Ms Cooper. If these two significant assumptions are correct – the Cooper camp believe they are because their candidate is “more of a centrist” as Burnham is moves leftwards – they say it would be a dead heat between Cooper and Corbyn.

“I’ll never ever do that”, she said.

Blair, a moderniser who was Labour’s longest-serving premier, urged the party to avoid tacking to the left if it is to recover from a crushing defeat in May’s general election and win the next one in 2020.

With the unexpected surge in support for Mr Corbyn threatening to plunge Labour into a bitter civil war, Mr Blair warned it could not win on an “old- fashioned leftist platform”. She was backed by the Blairite former health secretary Alan Milburn, who said: “I’m afraid history tells a very brutal lesson about what happens when Labour lurches to the left”.

The rising popularity and public profile of the left-wing Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn is sending the right-wing elements of the Labour Party into panic mode.

After a bruising day of recriminations the architect of its most successful electoral era said Ed Miliband’s tenure had left Labour with a “terrible legacy”.

“Liz has been asked about her weight, I’ve been asked (on [BBC Radio 4’s] Woman’s Hour of all places) about whether I can possibly do this job because of my husband, and any talk about me being a working mum has been used as a sexist way to divide Liz and I, and criticise Liz for not having children”. “I don’t want to be a party of protest and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from making that case”.

Leadership hopeful Andy Burnham made the surprise admission that he would serve in the shadow cabinet if the veteran MP takes the party’s top job.

He also hit out at former Blair adviser John McTernan for dubbing MPs “morons” for helping Mr Corbyn into the election.

“It was a complete mess”.

But the extraordinary enthusiasm generated by his campaign suggests there is an appetite in this country for someone who will hold the powerful to account and put some pressure on the tiny minority who have seen their wealth swell during the recession while the rest of the country struggles to pay the bills.

“Where there are tough choices, we will always protect public services and support for the most vulnerable”, he said.

“The modern world means that you have to change with it and if you don’t, you get left behind”, Blair said.

Indeed, the collapse of trust in Labour and the four million voters who walked away from his party during those years can be attributed to his tried, tested and failed strategy.

She drew a comparison with former prime minister Harold Wilson’s famous “white heat of technology” speech.

“I would have thought he could manage something more serious than those very silly remarks”, he said.