In a bid to boost its flagging membership Labour is to launch its own "university" this autumn.

The brainchild of the party's general secretary, David Triesman, it will enrol Labour academics to run courses and qualifications for activists and MPs.

Though without its own campus the Millbank university will run graduate-level courses, with lectures by LSE chief and "third way" guru Anthony Giddens, to raise the standard of Labour's parliamentary candidates and policy wonks.