Alan Johnson Labour should learn from Blair to revive their fortunes

Former Home Secretary Alan Johnson has urged the next Labour leader to learn from the success of Tony Blair.

Candidates for the Labour leadership have spent the weekend taking soundings with several runners expected to announce this week.

Ed Miliband resigned on Friday in the wake of a disastrous election for Labour.

Johnson, who ruled out a bid to replace Miliband, said the party must take time to reflect and appeal to voters’ “aspirations” as they did under Blair.

He said: “We need to have a proper rethink about where we’re going as a party, not just imagine that it was because Ed Miliband was leader or because the way he ate a bacon sandwich or whatever was the problem.

“It’s a much deeper problem I think we have to resolve.”

He spoke after former cabinet minister Lord Hutton urged Labour to skip a generation of MPs in its search for a leader, and to pick a younger challenger who can make the opposition an electoral threat to the Tories.

The party’s ruling National Executive Committee meets tomorrow to determine the rules and length of the contest to replace both Ed Miliband and deputy leader Harriet Harman who is due to stand down following the leadership elections.

Last night Angela Eagle, formerly Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, announced her bid to run for deputy Labour leader and refused to rule out a tilt at the top job in the party.

It’s believed Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna, Andy Burnham and Dan Jarvis are looking into running for the leadership.

Other possible candidates include former Shadow Health Minister Liz Kendall and shadow Equalities Minister Gloria de Piero both were first elected in 2010.

Meanwhile, Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy is under mounting pressure to follow Miliband’s lead and quit after one of his MSPs said it was “unthinkable” he could carry on as leader.

Mr Murphy saw his party lose 39 seats to the SNP last week in a disastrous result which has left them with just one MP.

But the Scottish Labour leader, who lost his own East Renfrewshire seat, has insisted he would stay on and fight for a seat in next year’s Holyrood election. However, the move has met with a fierce backlash in some factions of Scottish Labour.

The Sunday Post has spoken to a total of nine serving MSPs and former MPs who say Murphy has to go. Last night two trade unions also said he had to quit.

Murphy still enjoys the support of a sizeable chunk of the party, including his deputy Kez Dugdale, so the lack of any serious successor to take over could yet see him stay on.

Elaine Smith, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, who helped run the failed leadership campaign of Neil Findlay, who yesterday quit the shadow cabinet, said: “Our problems clearly go much deeper than who is leader, but it is unthinkable that he can stay on and will be making that clear to our group meeting next week.”