Defeated Labour star derided as she blames Blair for loss of seat

ONE of Labour’s defeated rising stars has blamed Tony Blair for the fact that she lost her seat in the general election.

Laura Pidcock, who was tipped as a possible future leader of the party, lost by more than 1,100 votes to the Tories’ Richard Holden.

She said yesterday: “Vital to learn the lessons of Labour’s general election defeat. However, the answers will not be found at the door of New Labour’s architects. Blair’s legacy still hangs around this party like a millstone, especially in the North East. I heard it time and time again.”

There was a 10 per cent swing to the Conservatives in Ms Pidcock’s seat since the election in 2017, which took place 10 years after Mr Blair left office.

Kevin Barron, the former Labour Rother Valley MP, replied: “So Blair is to blame for your defeat? That’s not what my relatives from the constituency tell me.”

Jacqui Smith, a former Labour home secretary, said Mr Corbyn was to blame for Ms Pidcock’s loss, writing: “Laura ... I’m sorry you lost your seat but it was down to the unelectability of the leader and the project you championed. You need to own that rather than try to shift the blame to a leader and politics that actually managed to win and change Britain for the better.”

Ms Pidcock’s attack comes after the former Labour leader said the party was marooned on “fantasy island” under Jeremy Corbyn and must propose a more centrist agenda if it wanted to get back into government within a decade.

Mr Blair said the landslide defeat was “overwhelmingly a Corbyn problem and only secondarily a Brexit problem”.

Ms Pidcock’s former seat in North West Durham was one of a number of

Labour strongholds to fall to the Tories in the election, including Bishop Auckland, Darlington and Stockton South.

While many Labour seats in the North saw a Tory swing of 18 per cent, some of the party’s London seats maintained very large majorities.

David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, has a majority of more than 30,000, and yesterday hinted he may be considering a leadership bid.

Mr Lammy, who would be the party’s first black leader, said that he would decide over Christmas whether to run in the contest, which is due early next year.

“The alternative to Boris Johnson’s ethnic nationalism that Labour should offer is a civic nationalism,” he wrote in yesterday’s Observer.

“To foster this, we need to construct new spaces and places in which the UK’S diverse peoples can engage with each other and belong.”

He said Mr Corbyn’s “perceived world view” and “failure of competence” were the reasons the party lost the election.