New Labour leader: is the tilt to Blair misguided?

Tristram Hunt took his decision not to run for Labour Party leader yesterday because he didn't want to split the Blairite vote and deny Liz Kendall the chance of victory.

But is a Blairite – or so-called moderniser – really what Labour needs if it is to regain power?

There is no evidence, argues Seumas Milne in The Guardian, that it was Ed Miliband's leftish agenda that lost Labour the election.

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Yes, Miliband was unable to cut through as a leader; and, yes, the party under his direction failed to regain the economic credibility lost in the crash of 2008. But his policies were largely popular, says Milne.

"The mansion tax, 50 per cent top tax rate and privatised energy price freeze were among Labour's most popular policies. And polling has regularly found large majorities want the government to be tougher on big business – as well as an end to austerity."

Yet as well as Kendall, the two leading candidates – Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper – have also fallen in behind a Blairite agenda, attacking Miliband's leadership for being anti-business and too ready to impose tax hikes on high-earners.

"The only rational explanation," says Milne, "is that they're responding not to the electorate but the corporate-owned press and the City, who would have had to stump up a bit more if Labour had won and conducted a ferocious campaign against Miliband to prevent any such outcome."

In short, none of the leadership candidates has an agenda that reflects public - let alone Labour - opinion, says Milne. "Last week, ten newly elected MPs demanded an 'alternative to austerity' instead of a return to 'the New Labour creed of the past'. But without a candidate prepared to challenge the lurch to the right, the terms of Labour's debate will be set by the media and Blair revivalists."

Labour needs to take back control of its own contest, Milne concludes, or the union disaffiliation threatened in recent days could become a reality and eventually trigger a party split.