Jeremy Corbyn addressed Labour members and supporters at his policy launch at the Carriageworks in Leeds.
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Mr Watson has not backed any of the four leadership contenders – Mr Corbyn, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper or shadow care minister Liz Kendall – but said he would work with any of them.
Mr Macintosh also repeated his claims to have had the Labour “party machine” in Scotland operating against him.
Jeremy Corbyn’s unexpected surge in the polls to become the front runner in Labour’s leadership contest has split opinion in the party north of the border.
“I don’t believe that we did not win the election because we were not left-wing enough”.
Asked if he believed Mr Corbyn would win, he said: “Judging by the energy and enthusiasm of the audiences he’s had all around the country I think it’s a very strong prospect”.
The former Cabinet Minister also attacked Mr Corbyn’s serial rebellions over the years, noting how the Islington MP had been “cheerfully disloyal to every Labour leader he’s ever served under; that’s fine so long as members understand that it’s the loyalty and discipline of the rest of us that created the NHS, the Open University”.
‘What I’m puzzled by is why it should come from trade union leaders whose members benefited so much under the last Labour government.’.
THE Labour Party has been urged by Alan Johnson, the former Home Secretary, to “end the madness” of supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership bid and instead back Yvette Cooper as the only candidate, who can unite the party and lead it to victory in 2020.
In a sign of Labour’s difficulties, community organiser Arnie Graf, who was brought over from the US to help under Ed Miliband’s leadership, claimed the party’s hierarchy had no connection with voters in key seats.
“The North was the industrial heartland of Britain“, it said. “There is an appetite for a real alternative and this important conversation has begun”.
The comments follow speculation that Mr Corbyn is a frontrunner to become Labour leader when the results of the ballot are announced on September 12.
Mr Johnson’s intervention is part of a drive by senior Labour figures to halt Mr Corbyn, who dismissed the personal criticism: “It is the name-calling… that drives people away”.
“That voice can not be silenced”.
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“Let’s at least talk aboput it but make sure the national resources are devolved that go with it so we don’t end up devolving the trappings of power without the resources to carry out the power to benefit the people of the area”. “We will be absolutely delighted if he is thinking about doing that”.
