Liz Kendall Refuses Suggestions to Quit the Race

“I don’t want to be a party of protest and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from making that case”.

Mills warned that there would be an impact on donations too, but stressed he would be minded to stay loyal to Labour even if Corbyn turned it into a substantial far-left party, like Die Linke in Germany.

“We have a Labour party which appears to be in hock to the corporates, to the big businesses that now dominate out lives and want to pay people as little as possible. Turning back to the politics of the 1980s, which saw us suffer defeat after defeat does nothing to help the people we all came into politics to serve”.

Mr Corbyn said he wanted to increase income tax but did not believe it would be “necessary” to go as high as 70p, claiming that restoring the 50p rate would being in billions for the Exchequer.

“I think I offer the best chance to do that”. “I’ve told them their signatures will be first on the letters to get rid of him”, he said.

According to Mr Blair – who made clear he thought the prospect unlikely – should Mr Corbyn win power, he would take the country backwards.

Mr Corbyn was the only one of the candidates who said he would bring Mr Miliband into his shadow cabinet. The Prince of Wales tackled former prime minister Tony Blair over a lack of resources for the Armed Forces fighting in Iraq, previously secret letters have revealed.

But Blair said that Labour could win in 2020, though not from a “traditional leftist platform”.

His comments came after a YouGov poll for The Times newspaper showed that Corbyn, the left-wing member of parliament (MP) for Islington North, would finish above former leadership favourite Andy Burnham by six points in the final round of voting.

However, given the groundswell of support for Corbyn, and the extreme weakness of the more right-wing candidates, this is not guaranteed to succeed.

Cooper also launched an attack on interim leader Harriet Harman’s handling of Monday night’s welfare vote.

“The Labour party has a spectrum of donors”, he said. I don’t think it has been handled right.

Pressed on whether Mr Blair’s message should be listened to, given that he won three elections, Mr Corbyn said: “I have been listening to Tony Blair for a very long time”.

Let us also assume that, having achieved this, they wish then to put their policies into practice.

Deputy Political Editor Joey Jones said: “None of the more mainstream candidates have managed to break from the pack and there’s every likelihood that if the Corbyn surge is not suppressed they will round on the individual whose support is looking weakest and suggest that they do the decent thing”.

Mr Milburn told the BBC the party would only win the next election if it occupied the centre ground. Corbyn has targeted these new members with promises to abolish tuition fees and a rejection of the 2015 election campaign as austerity-lite.

Speaking at Chartered Accountants’ Hall today, Blair said that the party needed to “get thinking” about policy and become an economically trusted option before the next general election.

“If the party elects any one of these candidates, they have the authority to lead the party”. His presence would ensure the fullest possible debate, said Labour politicians.

Blair is clearly desperate to prevent the emergence of a leader of the Party who publicly called for a debt conference to write off Greek debt, like the 1953 London Debt Conference, which wrote off Germany’s, and who supports establishing Glass-Steagall in Britain, as heavily debated in the House of Lords particularly in 2013.