Mandelson warning sparks Labour leadership clashes

The battle for the Labour leadership sparked into life today, as one of the architects of New Labour, Lord Mandelson, warned that victory for Ed Miliband could take the party into an “electoral cul-de-sac”.

Speculation was rife at Westminster that the former Business Secretary’s intervention may be paving the way for Tony Blair’s endorsement of Mr Miliband’s elder brother – and main leadership rival – David.

Mr Blair yesterday recorded an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr, to be broadcast alongside the publication of his keenly-awaited memoirs today.

Neither Mr Blair’s office nor the BBC would reveal whether the former Prime Minister used the interview to name his preferred successor, or is maintaining his policy of remaining aloof from the leadership debate.

Ed Miliband has used the long-running contest to urge the party to move on from New Labour, which he said had become “ideologically beached” because of its excessive caution over taxing the rich and its “control freakery”.

But Lord Mandelson hit back in an interview in The Times, warning: “I think that if he or anyone else wants to create a pre-New Labour future for the party then he and the rest of them will quickly find that that is an electoral cul-de-sac.”

Defending the approach that won Labour parliamentary majorities in 1997, 2001 and 2005, the peer later told the BBC: “It’s an insult to the voters, in my view, to say or imply that somehow everything that they believed in the Labour Party during those elections is something that we should no longer present to them.

“David has not said that. Ed, I think, sometimes allows his rhetoric to run away from him and to allow the impression to be created that, rather than pivoting forwards from now, he wants to pivot back to some pre-New Labour stage.”

Ed Miliband responded: “Peter’s always entitled to his point of view and he has been a great servant of our party in the past, but I think actually now Labour needs to move on.

“We need to address the country and talk about the issues that matter for the country and show that we can listen to the country, and that means we need to change.”

Lord Mandelson’s remarks got a frosty response from other leadership contenders.

Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham – describing himself as “neither Old nor New Labour, but true Labour” – said: “It is time to free Labour from the grip of the warring elites trying to control our party.

“It is sad that senior Labour figures who are supporting the front­runners are building this into a fight between Old and New Labour. Labour members are sick to the back teeth of it and we need to leave this behind. This is the time to move beyond this factionalism, not entrench it within our party.”

Diane Abbott said: “Lord Mandelson needs to understand that his era is over. Nothing could be more damaging to David Miliband than the impression that Lord Mandelson, Alistair Campbell and the old crew are behind him pulling the strings.

“The ordinary Labour Party members respect the achievements of the Blair era, but they also know that we lost four million voters and thousands of members in that period.

“Lord Mandelson represents the things that the public found most distasteful about New Labour. The media manipulation, the spin, the political triangulation and above all the internecine warfare.

“The party is ready to move on from New Labour. The public is ready to move on from New Labour. And it is time that Lord Mandelson understood that his days as stringpuller-in-chief are over.”

David Miliband kept out of the row, focusing instead on his vision of “the good society” offered by Labour in place of the “do-it-yourself” Big Society of Prime Minister David Cameron.

In a speech to supporters in Westminster, the shadow Foreign Secretary admitted to feeling “concerned about the future of the Labour Party” after its defeat in the May general election.

But he said he had become re-energised by involvement in a drive to train activists as community organisers across the country, using cash raised for his campaign.

He told supporters: “This is not the Tory Big Society in front of me tonight, it is Labour’s Good Society. And every single one of us should be incredibly proud to be part of it.

“Some will ask – what does this good society look like? Well, I’ll tell, you: good schools, good hospitals, good policing, good estates, good Sure Start programmes, good housing, good childcare.

“But most of all, the good society is built on people – decent people, inspiring people – like all of you in this hall today – good people doing good deeds.”

Promising to offer “power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many not the few”, Mr Miliband said that Labour is “returning to its roots”.

“It is taking back the tradition of mutualism and cooperation that it should never have left behind,” he said.

“I feel in our party not resignation or gloom but a real desire to fight back. We know that we can come back. We know we have the people. We know that we have the ideas, and we know that with strong leadership and this movement for change, Labour can win again for the sake of all our communities.”

Former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, who has offered his support to Ed Miliband, told the Daily Telegraph that Lord Mandelson was “indulging in the kind of personalised factionalism” which had harmed the party in the past.