Now Brown joins chorus of critics over leadership favourite Corbyn
FORMER Prime Minister Gordon Brown has become the latest Labour grandee to intervene in the party’s leadership contest, saying that it needs to present itself as “credible” and “electable”. In a 50-minute speech in London yesterday, Brown did not refer to any of the Labour leadership candidates by name, but appeared to roundly reject the hard-left proposals of front-runner Jeremy Corbyn. “The best way of realising our high ideals is to show that we have an alternative in government that is credible, is radical, is electable,” Brown said, adding: “[It] is neither a pale imitation of what the Tories offer, nor is it the route to being a party of permanent protest, rather than being a party of government.” Brown’s comments came on the same day as a new opinion poll from ComRes found that the public deemed Corbyn the least-likely of the four Labour leadership candidates to improve the party’s chances of winning the next General Election. The poll, conducted for the Independent on Sunday newspaper, found that 31 per cent of voters thought Corbyn would actually worsen Labour’s chances of being in government if he were to become leader.