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Milibands 'should have gone for leadership'
A Labour MP has said that one of the "really new generation" of politicians, such as David or Ed Miliband, should have been put forward in the party's leadership contest last year.
David Drew told ePolitix.com that Gordon Brown had been a "brilliant chancellor but it was never going to be an easy shift for him to make to become prime minister".
Last week the Stroud MP said Brown "was never my choice" and "is a tragedy".
And he said on Friday that "the treatment of Gordon Brown is gratuitous and doesn't do anything for politics in general".
"But I do think that sadly some of the things that some of us predicted have come home to roost," he added.
'Demanding'
Drew said that it was "physically as well as mentally demanding to be able to make that shift" from chancellor to prime minister.
"And I think that maybe there was a case, certainly for an election which we didn't have, and to look at other people who might have also put a strong candidature forward," he said.
"There were people I'd like to have seen stand, you could have had one of the really new generation, one of the Milibands and Ed Balls but I'm always impressed by Alan Johnson."
He praised Brown as "a very serious politician", saying: "I don't think people are remembering clearly enough the work that he did do as a fine chancellor.
"They're just now piling into him regardless of his past efforts and the fact that, as I say, he is a very serious politician with very serious views."
Losses
Drew went on to say that Labour's local election losses were "disastrous" due to "issues on the doorstep" including the abolition of the 10p tax band, the closure of post offices "and just people not really warming to what we've done over the last few years".
"I don't think there's a mood for a change, I just think there's a mood to give the government a good kicking and they've done that," he said.
The government did not "listen to what people's core concerns were", he said, adding: "The economy has an impact and sadly government's can't do as much as they would like to do in that area.
"But changing the tax situation for the poorest people was not a great vote winner."
In order to recover, Labour had to come up with a "credible package" on the issue of the 10p tax bracket, Drew said, as well as withdrawing from Iraq and retaining as many post offices as possible.
"That's a fairly coherent package of things they need to do just to begin with," he said.
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