The shadow health secretary told activists in Manchester there is a “good deal of common ground” between him and Jeremy Corbyn on some of the major policy areas, including transport and education, as he reached out to supporters of the frontrunner.
Advertisement
Those Labour MPs who voted for David M (53 per cent of them) behaved with restraint and dignity to maintain party unity.
Mr Corbyn confirmed that he could work with Mr Burnham, if elected.
“I am determined to win and unite the party so we can focus on the things that matter to the public”.
“I have always been loyal to Labour and will give it what it wants – a united party”.
Mr Burnham’s campaign chief Michael Dugher told The Guardian: “It’s time now to rally behind the only person in this contest who can beat Jeremy Corbyn and that is very clearly Andy Burnham”.
But he said it was crucial for Labour to have a “credible” plan for public finances and criticised the Islington North MP’s opaque stance on Britain’s future in the European Union as well as his plans for renationalisation of utilities and “printing money” to pay for infrastructure.
Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt – a supporter of Ms Kendall who is giving his second preference vote to Ms Cooper – said he believed the contest remained “far more open than people think”.
“People don’t want the Labour party to be more obsessed with internal disputes, rather than dealing with those issues that affect people’s lives”, he said. Some frontbenchers have been trying to persuade Harriet Harman, the acting leader, to hold a shadow cabinet meeting at which there would be calls to halt the contest because of worries about infiltration by non-Labour supporters, but this has been rebuffed.
“But I can unite the party in a way that Jeremy can’t”.
Mr Miliband moved to America after his younger brother won the Labour leadership – and subsequently lost it after May’s election.
In a direct attack against Mr Corbyn, he said Labour needs to be “clear-eyed” about core centre-left principles and be the party of reform instead of seeking to fight the next election “as a party of angry protest”.
He then went back to government and was instrumental in the setting up of an independent panel to re-investigate the disaster.
But Mr Burnham’s comments prompted criticism from fellow leadership rival Yvette Cooper.
Yet Labour MP Mike Gapes concurred with the only Miliband to declare.
“What makes us Labour is we worry about these gaps in society”.
The leadership race has become increasingly tense after Mr Corbyn emerged from rank outsider to favourite.
“Jeremy is speaking in a way people are responding to, from the heart and saying what he believes in”. I have never changed my view and I won’t. I didn’t spill my coffee at the time.
While Ms Cooper said she had not been approached directly by the grandee and said she was unaware if her campaign team had been contacted, Ms Kendall insisted that neither she nor her office had spoken to the peer.
“I have no idea where that came from”.
The competing camps of Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper traded demands for each to clear the way for the other amid claims of sexism and desperation. If no candidate wins outright with more than 50% of first preferences, whoever is in fourth place drops out and the second preferences of their backers are reallocated to the other candidates.
While Burnham and Corbyn have exchanged niceties, Burnham in his speech said he is “the only candidate who can unite our party”.
Advertisement
“I’m not going to be dropping out in this contest, I can’t stop making the case”.
