Blair tells Labour: You cannot win power by moving left

Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham has revealed he would serve in the shadow cabinet if left-winger Jeremy Corbyn takes the party’s top job.

Ms Kendall has rejected calls to quit to ensure so-called moderates Mr Burnham or Ms Cooper beat Mr Corbyn.

Corbyn, whose uncompromising anti-austerity stance seems to be particularly inspiring to the tens of thousands recently joined Labour members and to trade unionists signing up as affiliates to take part in the contest, also came under attack from the Labour MP John Mann over his record on child abuse allegations.

Former British Prime Minister and Labour leader Tony Blair warned his party against electing socialist Jeremy Corbyn as party leader, after the pro-Palestinian MP emerged as the frontrunner in the leadership race in a new poll.

She admitted the party had been damaged by the decision to abstain in the Commons vote on the Government’s welfare reforms – prompting 48 MPs to rebel, including Mr Corbyn.

A YouGov Plc poll in Wednesday’s Times newspaper showed 43 per cent of the Labour electorate backing the former trade-union official Jeremy Corbyn as their first preference, a clear lead over rivals Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall.

It looks like the Labour party is taking a nose-dive to the hard left.

Jones added: “It’s an extraordinary situation the Labour Party finds itself in”.

Prescott told the former prime minister to “calm down” after Blair warned that people who said their heart was with Jeremy Corbyn should “get a transplant“.

She said a victory for Mr Corbyn would be a “disaster”, saying that turning back to the politics of the 1980s and losing elections “does nothing to help the people” the party wants to help.

But among the public at large, Burnham’s net score is zero (because the 27% who say he could be a good PM match the 27% who say he could not).

Corbyn hit back, however, saying that Blair should be more concerned with his involvement in the Iraq war, and the Chilcot report.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, predicted most Labour members “will let their heads rule their hearts” and choose another candidate.

The businessman, who is Labour’s largest private donor, said: “If he becomes Labour’s leader, the party will clearly be vacating the political centre, where elections are won and lost, leaving the Conservatives in a dominant position to carry out their policies untrammelled by an effective opposition”. They were asked to indicate how they would vote using Labour’s Alternative Vote method.

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.

During the radio hustings, the contenders were put on the spot by Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who phoned as “Nigel from Kent” to challenge the Labour candidates over whether they could ever see themselves voting No in the referendum on EU membership.

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”.

“Those of us who stayed and fought to save the Labour party in the 1980s will be experiencing a growing sense of deja vu”, he said.