Red Ed on Corbyn: He’s even worse than I was!

FORMER Labour leader Ed Miliband has broken his silence over his successor Jeremy Corbyn – and suggested he was turning out to be an even bigger flop than he was.

Mr Miliband had stayed tightlipped about Mr Corbyn’s disastrous performance, but last week, he astonished a group of Labour MPs by telling them: ‘I bet you didn’t think things would actually get worse.’

Now Mr Corbyn’s frontbench critics are plotting a coup if Labour loses the Oldham West by-election in ten days’ time. If their 14,738 majority is overturned by Ukip, they plan to table a no-confidence vote among Labour MPs and mount a mass resignation of Shadow Ministers to force the leader out, with Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn tipped as the favourite interim leader.

Mr Miliband made his scathing remarks to Graham Stringer, the Manchester MP who was an outspoken critic of his leadership, in the Commons Smoking Room, an inner sanctum where MPs meet to drink and plot in private.

Mr Miliband then added: ‘But I won’t be appointing you as chairman of the campaign for me to return as leader’. One MP present said there had been ‘a sharp edge’ to Mr Miliband’s remarks, adding: ‘He is obviously not serious about returning as leader, but you get the sense he wants some sort of role again’. Many MPs blame Mr Miliband for inflict- ing Mr Corbyn on them by changing the rules of the leadership contest to give the party membership a greater say, allowing Left-wing ‘entryists’ to dominate the election.

Mr Miliband’s intervention came after what was billed as Labour’s ‘worst-ever week’, with Mr Corbyn provoking disbelief by questioning the right of the authorities to ‘shoot to kill’ terrorist suspects and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell being forced to deny he wanted to abolish MI5 and armed police.

And after Shadow Defence Minister Kevan Jones questioned staunch Corbyn ally Ken Livingstone’s credentials to serve on a party review of Trident, the ex-London Mayor sparked fury by claiming Mr Jones, who has suffered from depression, might need ‘psychiatric help’. That row reached boiling point yesterday in a bitter radio exchange between Mr Livingstone and outspoken Labour MP John Mann, who angrily accused him of being an ‘appalling bigot’ and a ‘bully’.