Cherie’s dad mauls Red Ed the dummy

WHILE a handful of Labour MPs have raised doubts about Ed Miliband’s leadership of their party, Tony Blair’s father-in-law, Tony Booth, is more blunt.

Asked if ‘ Red Ed’ could win power, Booth replies: ‘In your f ****** dreams. This is not play school.’

T he 83- year- ol d f ormer Coronation Street actor suggests Labour would do better in next May’s General Election if Blair was persuaded to stage an unlikely return.

‘Funnily enough, I think he might have an outside chance,’ Booth says. ‘Because people would say, “Well, at least he is the devil we know.”

‘And with Miliband, you find yourself thinking, “This is a good kid, but when is he going to get into long pants? Are we just putting him up as a dummy until we find the right person?”’

Cherie Blair’s father has been battling Alzheimer’s disease for almost a decade, but is described as ‘more coherent than most serving MPs I have met’ by his Newsweek interviewer, Robert Chalmers.

Booth suggests that the party should choose its first female leader to replace Miliband.

‘I hope that, lurking somewhere in the Labour ranks, is a female politician who will emerge and speak the truth,’ he says.

‘The one thing the Tories really don’t like is a nanny. Nannies frighten them.

‘We need somebody in the mould of [former Labour Cabinet minister] Barbara Castle.’