LABOUR’S tumultuous leadership race carried on yesterday, as Gordon Brown let it be known he had voted for Yvette Cooper.
Last week the former Prime Minister gave a thinly coded warning to party members not to vote for Jeremy Corbyn, saying to do so would turn Labour into a party of protest rather than a party of government. During that speech Brown was expected to announce his backing for Cooper, but kept his own counsel.
Brown gave Cooper his first preference, Andy Burnham his second and Liz Kendall his third.
The former MP for Kirkcaldy is to give a speech at Edinburgh International Book Festival on Sunday.
His intervention came ahead of a meeting between the four candidates and Labour HQ today to discuss concerns about the contest being infiltrated by members of other political parties and the resulting “purge” that has seen thousands of supporters kicked out.
Over the weekend key senior Labour voices urged the party to calm down.
Former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who is well respected by most factions in the party, told The Daily Telegraph that talk of coups and splits was premature. “I just say to my colleagues who are plotting and planning or whatever… cool heads and steady hands," he said. "This was an election. If Jeremy Corbyn emerges as the winner I would counsel anyone thinking of splitting or separating to think again.”
Yvette Cooper yesterday launched a fresh attack on Corbyn’s economic policies. Writing in The Guardian, she said his plan to “print money” to fund infrastructure developments would lead to soaring unemployment and inflation.
Cooper said: “It’s one thing to use Quantitative Easing to boost liquidity when the economy has completely crashed.
“But if you try it when the economy is growing, you push up inflation, destroy confidence in the currency, lose us jobs and investment and create a cost-of-living crisis too.
“Nor can you just make endless promises to be paid for by extra borrowing or printing money we haven’t got.
“Because ultimately, all this would be pulled apart before we even got to the election, undermining our credibility
... promising to print money gives anti-austerity a bad name – and will drive people back into the Tories’ arms. We have to oppose George Osborne’s 40 per cent cut in public services. But we have to be credible.”
Last night Burnham, who is competing with Cooper for second place and second preference votes, warned that a vote for Corbyn was a vote for two decades of Tory government.
“If we take the wrong turn now, we risk subjecting people to two decades of the Tories. We let that happen once before and I will fight with everything I’ve got to stop it happening again.”
Kendall, again, insisted that she would not drop out of the contest, claiming that many voters were still undecided.
Corbyn was last night forced to postpone a planned appearance in Cambridge due to high demand for tickets from supporters.
However, the cancellation did not stop the veteran left-winger from launching his mental health policy.
“Britain has a mental health crisis, and this government is making it worse,” he said.
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