Labour's leadership race turned serious this morning - after front-runner Chuka Umunna wheeled out his new girlfriend in public for the first time as he set out his stall to replace Ed Miliband.
The shadow business secretary was pictured walking hand-in-hand with his glamorous lawyer partner Alice Sullivan ahead of his interview on the BBC's flagship Andrew Marr show.
Mr Umunna used the interview to criticise Labour's drift to the left and admitted he was considering a bid become leader.
His intervention came after Labour's leadership battle descended into open warfare after Mr Umunna and the other leadership contenders were accused of 'behaving like family members taking jewellery off a corpse' by openly criticising Mr Miliband so soon after the election defeat.
Labour MP Chuka Umunna (left) and girlfriend Alice Sullivan (right) pictured before the Andrew Marr Show in Westminster this morning
Mr Umunna used the interview to criticise Labour's drift to the left and admitted he was considering a bid become leader
Blairite front-benchers Tristram Hunt and Liz Kendal joined Mr Umunna in criticising Labour's disastrous campaign today, after the party suffered its worst election defeat in almost 30 years.
The party lost all-but one of its MPs in Scotland and failed to make any gains south of the border, where even the shadow chancellor Ed Balls lost his seat.
Mr Hunt said the party was in a 'really deep hole' and admitted he would 'get involved' in the leadership contest to take over from Ed Miliband.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, Chuka Umunna said: 'In my view the Labour party succeeds and does best when it marries together its compassion for people who can't provide for themselves'
Blairite shadow ministers Chuka Umunna (left on the Andrew Marr show this morning), Tristram Hunt (centre) and Liz Kendal (right) this morning used TV appearances and newspaper interviews to criticise Labour's disastrous campaign
Labour MP John Wodcock, who is a close ally of Liz Kendal, said the accusation that Labour MPs were acting 'like family members taking jewellery off a corpse' was 'disgusting'
Diane Abbot, speaking on Sky News, questioned why figures such as Mr Umunna had not challenged Mr Miliband's strategy when they were in the shadow cabinet.
She said: 'Some of (the leadership candidates) have rushed in putting articles out that basically trash Ed Miliband's entire election strategy.
'I'm slightly struck, these people sat in the shadow cabinet for nearly five years and did not say those things.
But a source from what was described as an 'unannounced leadership campaign' went further – claiming the leadership candidates were 'behaving like family members taking jewellery off a corpse'.
Labour MP John Woodcock, who is a strong ally of Ms Kendal, slammed the 'disgusting slur' and called for the un-named aide to be named.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, the wife of ousted former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, is widely expected to stand – alongside Andy Burnham and the former paratrooper Dan Jarvis.
Speaking this morning on Sky's Murnaghan programme, Mr Hunt said: 'I think everybody who loves the Labour party, as I do, needs to get involved now.
'We are in a really deep hole and we need everyone to pull together and really have it out about what went wrong and what went right and I do want to be one of those voices.
'But it's more than about just leadership; it's about how the party is led and about the political philosophy behind it.'
Ed Miliband, former leader of the Labour party, poses for a family portrait with his wife Justine Thornton and their children Daniel and Samuel outside their home yesterday
He agreed that Labour had shifted too far from the centre ground.
'Public didn't feel that they could trust us with their economic futures – they didn't feel that we spoke to their sense of cultural or national identity in England and clearly in Scotland as well.
'We are in a terrible hole. We are 100 seats behind the Conservative party. We should be in no doubt about the seriousness.
'I was certainly shocked by the scale of the loss... I felt that we could have had a stronger message for those aspirational parts of Britain.'
Mr Umunna gave a similar analysis for why he thought Labour had lost.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, he said: 'In my view the Labour party succeeds and does best when it marries together its compassion for people who can't provide for themselves – the vulnerable or the poor – with others' ambition and drive and aspiration to get on and do well.'
He said he would 'play the fullest part I can' in rebuilding the Labour Party but declined to confirm that he would seek the leadership amid a barrage of criticism from senior figures of the tactics that ended in a crushing General Election defeat.
'I certainly intend to play the fullest part I can in rebuilding our party and having the proper debate that we now need to have to make sure we win,' he told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show when pressed to say if he would stand.
'We are down but we are not out. The scale of the defeat is of '92 proportions but there is no reason why we shouldn't get back in in 2020. I do not buy this idea that this is somehow a 10-year rebuilding project.
'We can do this in five years if we make the right decisions now and present that aspirational and compassionate case to the British people which we are so good at. We can do this.'
Mr Umunna: 'This was a collective failure on the part of all of us who were on the front line,' he said - conceding that at times the party gave the false impression 'we weren't with the wealth creators'.
'For middle income voters there wasn't enough of an aspirational offer there,' he said.
'I was never told that there was specifically a 35% strategy but if you look at the offer that was a conclusion that people were entitled to reach.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
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