Chuka Umunna attacks Labour for failing to win over middle class

The Labour MP Chuka Umunna has attacked his party for not doing enough to win over aspirational middle-class voters before last week's election as he laid out his stall for a possible leadership bid.

Mr Umunna, who has been a key ally of Ed Miliband, criticised the former Labour leader for not appearing sufficiently pro-business.

He told the BBC's Andrew Marr: "For middle-income voters there was not enough of an aspirational offer there . . . I don't think you can argue you are pro-business if you are always beating up on the terms and conditions of the people who make business work."

He added: "You cannot be pro the kind of jobs we want to see if you aren't backing the people who create them."

Bookmakers have made Mr Umunna, the former shadow business secretary, an early favourite for the Labour leadership. He suggested he was considering running, saying he wanted to "contribute to the future direction of our party".

Mr Umunna also sought to draw a line under the party's economic policy, arguing, in contrast to Mr Miliband, that it spent too much before 2010. "Should we have gone into the economic crash with a deficit, albeit a small and historically insignificant one? Of course not," he said.

He appeared to receive the backing of Lord Mandelson, the former business secretary, who made many similar criticisms of Labour's direction.

Lord Mandelson told Mr Marr: "We were sent off in 2010 on a giant political experiment in which we were told to wave our fists and shout angrily about the nasty Tories and wait for the public to realise how much they had missed us. Well they weren't missing us and they didn't miss us. Instead they ripped the stripes off our shoulders."

He added: "We were told to make an argument, if you can call it an argument, which basically said we're for the poor, we hate the rich, ignoring completely the vast swath of the population who exist in between."

Other favourites for the Labour leadership include Andy Burnham, the former health secretary, Dan Jarvis, an ex-army officer turned Labour MP, and Tristram Hunt, the historian and former shadow education secretary.

Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon, whose Scottish National party won 56 of Scotland's 59 Westminster seats last week, told Mr Marr she did not see her party's thumping victory as an endorsement of a second independence referendum.

Alex Salmond, Ms Sturgeon's predecessor as SNP leader, had said over the weekend that he saw the party's results as a "staging post" to independence". But she denied this was the case, saying she intended to play a "constructive role" in Westminster.

Ms Sturgeon said: "This general election campaign was not about independence. I said that repeatedly and consistently. I said expressly to people in Scotland that if they voted SNP in this election, and about half of them did, I would not take that as an endorsement of independence."

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