‘Toxic’ Tony Blair holds secret talks with Red Ed

TONY BLAIR has become such a toxic figure for Labour that four of the party’s General Election candidates have so far announced they will not accept a £1,000 donation from him towards their campaigns.

So supporters of ‘Red Ed’ Miliband will be bemused to hear that he felt the need to hold private talks with the controversial former prime minister at his £8 million London home on Monday evening.

‘It was an election team bonding session,’ says my man at Westminster. ‘Blair hosted the meeting, Cherie was not there, and Ed took along some of his key allies.’

Blair warned last December that May’s vote could be a rerun of elections before he became party leader in 1994 — which regularly ended in disaster for Labour.

He said 2015 could be an election ‘in

which a traditional Left-wing party competes with a traditional Rightwing party, with the traditional result’. Asked if he meant a Conservative win, he said: ‘Yes, that is what happens.’

It was just the latest in a series of digs that Blair made at miliband last year, including an attack on the marxist historian’s son for being too far to the Left on economics and a reluctant public sector reformer.

He added: ‘The Labour Party succeeds best when it is in the centre ground.’

Last month, though, Blair moved to end talk of a rift by pledging to offer whatever support miliband wanted in the run-up to the may 7 vote.

He then donated £1,000 to the local campaigns in each of Labour’s 106 key target seats, telling candidates he was giving the money because he knows these are the seats where the campaign will be won or lost.

A Labour spokesman refused to deny the talks had taken place. He said: ‘We never comment on mr miliband’s private meetings.’ Globe-trotting Blair could not be reached for comment.