Ed Miliband is a worse leader than Neil Kinnock, a former Labour Home Secretary claimed today.
Charles Clarke also predicted that David Cameron was likely to win an overall majority at next year’s General Election.
He criticised Mr Miliband for Labour not having a “narrative” for improving Britain.
Labour is ahead in the polls but Mr Miliband’s critics believe he will lose this lead in the run-up to the May 2015 poll, as happened to Lord Kinnock in the 1992 election.
“I think the most likely outcome is a Tory overall majority,” Mr Clarke, who was Lord Kinnock’s chief-of-staff more than 20 years ago, told The Huffington Post UK.
Pressed on who was better at the helm of the party, Mr Clarke added: “Neil has far, far more qualities than Ed Miliband as a leader.
“Neil was a fantastic leader and brought Labour back towards victory.”
He urged Mr Miliband to “set out a clear statement of what Labour would actually do” to give voters a reason to back it, rather than relying on an “assembly of odd policies like the electricity [price] freeze or whatever”. The comments by Mr Clarke — who was a leading Blairite and critic of Gordon Brown — will not surprise many Labour MPs but still risk damaging Mr Miliband.
The former Cabinet minister, who lost his seat in 2010 and is now a visiting university professor, also undermined shadow chancellor Ed Balls by arguing that Labour did “overspend” for several years from 2006, shortly before Mr Brown took over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister.
He argued that it would be better for Labour to now have former chancellor Alistair Darling as head of its Treasury team, although he stopped short of calling for Mr Balls to go.
Mr Clarke also suggested that Mr Brown should stand down as an MP unless he spends more time at Westminster.
He defended Labour’s record on immigration, describing Mr Balls and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper as “completely wrong” for apologies over the party’s stance on this issue.
