UK election 2015: Alan Johnson approached to replace Ed Miliband as Labour leader months before election, UK election News updates, United Kingdom general polls, UK Election news 2015
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- Last Updated: Thursday, 12 February 2015 16:10
UK election 2015: Alan Johnson approached to replace Ed Miliband as Labour leader months before election
Lord Mandelson, the former Business secretary, and Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former director of communications and a friend of Ed Miliband, contacted Mr Johnson to ask if he wanted to lead the party
Lord Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, two of the founders of 'new' Labour, approached Alan Johnson in the past few months to ask if he wanted to replace Ed Miliband as Labour leader.
Both Lord Mandelson, the former Business secretary, and Mr Campbell, Tony Blair’s former director of communications, contacted Mr Johnson, a former Labour Cabinet minister, to ask if he wanted to lead the party.
The intervention came weeks after Mr Miliband’s disastrous speech to the Labour party conference when he forgot to mention the economy.
At the time rumours were circulating about a possible plot to replace Mr Miliband as leader.
At least 40 Labour MPs were understood to have backed backed an abortive coup, which came weeks after the Labour leader’s disastrous conference speech when he forgot to mention the deficit.
An authoritative report in the Financial Times said that Lord Mandelson and Mr Campbell “took soundings from Johnson to see whether he was prepared to take over” last Autumn.
Mr Johnson,who was Mr Miliband's shadow Chancellor when he first became leader, gave “an emphatic No”.
Both the Labour Party and Lord Mandelson confirmed that the conversation took place – but insisted they only discussed the reports in the press at the time.
The Tories seized on the report as evidence that Mr Miliband was not up to the job of Prime Minister.
Conservative Nadhim Zahawi MP said: “Six months out from the General Election those at the highest levels of the Labour party were plotting to remove Ed Miliband.
“This just proves Ed Miliband is not up to the job of being Prime Minster and his own party knows it. Ed Miliband in Downing Street would spell chaos for Britain."
A Labour spokesman said: “Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell have made it extremely clear to the FT that they spoke to Alan Johnson only to see if newspapers reported rumours were correct.
“They were not sounding him out or encouraging him to stand, but checking the accuracy of the reports in the press. They discovered that these reports were false and misleading.”
Lord Mandelson denied that he had encouraged Mr Johnson to challenge Mr Miliband.
He said: “As he is a good friend of mine, we talked about the press frenzy going on at the time and he said it was all nonsense. End of conversation, end of story.”
The revelations will be particularly embarrassing for Mr Campbell who has been reported to be giving informal advice on election strategy to Labour.
Earlier this year the Fabian Society, which is close to Labour, disclosed that Mr Campbell has joined Mr Miliband’s advisory election team in the run up to May’s election.
The campaign group said Mr Campbell “will be drawing on years of experience as former British prime minister Tony Blair’s spokesman, press secretary and director of communications and strategy”.
Mr Campbell failed to respond to requests from The Daily Telegraph for comment on Friday.
A spokesman for Mr Johnson said he "did not recall the conversation".
src:telegraph.co.uk