Blair's memoir message risks Labour civil war

Tony Blair risked plunging the Labour leadership contest into civil war by issuing a warning to the party not to drift to the left.

In his memoirs, published on the day the first votes were cast in the leadership election, Mr Blair warned that Labour faces defeat at the next election if it abandons the New Labour agenda he framed as prime minister.

His comments were widely seen as support for leadership front-runner David Miliband over his brother Ed, though the former premier was careful in the book and interviews promoting it not to endorse any of the five candidates to succeed Gordon Brown.

David Miliband made no public comment on the autobiography, but Ed said it was time to "move on from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson" and that he was the candidate best placed to 'turn the page' on that era.

And another contender, Andy Burnham, accused Mr Blair of 're-running the battles of the past', adding: "Labour needs to leave all this behind. Members are fed up with it. Most are not Blairites or Brownites, Old or New Labour. They are just Labour."

Mr Blair's book, entitled A Journey, lays bare the rift between himself and Mr Brown during his time in power, as well as his concerns about his chancellor's fitness to follow him into 10 Downing Street.

Describing Mr Brown as brilliant but 'maddening', Mr Blair blamed his successor for losing the last election by deviating from the New Labour message.

"Labour won when it was New Labour. It lost because it stopped being New Labour," he wrote.

Mr Brown made no response to Mr Blair's account of their time in power.

But former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott, who often acted as a go-between during the rows between the two men, said that the memoir presented only a 'one-sided version' of their relationship.

Lord Prescott rejected the suggestion that Mr Brown had dumped the New Labour agenda and warned it would be 'very, very damaging' for the party if the 'wars' between Blairites and Brownites continued and leadership candidates refused to serve under one another.