Labour leadership contender Yvette Cooper has warned her party against swinging too far to the left or right as she stressed there was a mountain to climb to become electable again.
The Shadow Home Secretary said the party had to “face some hard truths” and acknowledge it could not repeat the mistakes made under Ed Miliband, but insisted it was wrong to believe “there needs to be blood on the floor” for Labour to rise again.
Ms Cooper said the party could not afford to “flail about” or “give in to the Tories” but must produce plans to change in order to win elections next year in London, Wales and Scotland.
In an apparent swipe at her main rivals in the leadership race, Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham seen as the unions’ likely choice and the Blairite Liz Kendall, Ms Cooper said there was no “comfort blanket for us either in Labour victories or Labour defeats of the past” because “the world has changed”.
She added: “Acerbic critiques and the rapid washing of hands won’t make Labour win again. Nor will doing what we’ve done before but shouting a bit louder.
“We can’t repeat the narrow approach of the last five years, nor should we think the answer is to swallow the Tory manifesto instead.
“Neither approach will get us the Labour Government the country needs in 2020.”
She added: “The mountain we now have to climb is high.”
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