The shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott urged fellow Labour MPs to get behind Jeremy Corbyn and not suggest that his position was temporary.
Abbott was speaking at a Guardian fringe meeting at which she also criticised left of centre newspapers that she said were failing to support the Labour leader. She said that Corbyn was proving attractive even to Ukip voters, as well as being popular with younger voters.
Speaking about Labour’s previous leader Ed Miliband, Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said she liked Miliband and his policies but he had lacked an overarching narrative with the result that his polices were less than the sum of their parts.
She recalled that Winston Churchill had said “scientists should be on tap, but not on top”, adding she felt the same about opinion pollsters.
Abbott’s warning came as Caroline Flint, who stood in the deputy leadership contest, said the party could not afford to go into “denial” with another unpopular leader.
She said that, during the last parliament, party activists had told headquarters that Miliband was not “cutting through”. But no one acted to get rid of him, she said.
Speaking at the same event, Deborah Mattinson, from market researchers Britain Thinks, presented focus group findings showing that the public knew little about Corbyn, but were aware of reports that he supports the IRA and had not sung the national anthem.
Although voters liked his performance at prime minister’s questions, they thought he looked scruffy and old-fashioned. In one focus group, a person said he looked as though he did not own an iPad.
The problem for Corbyn, Mattinson said, was that if he tried to change his image, he risked losing his reputation for authenticity. She also said that the loss of trust in Labour on the economy was the key factor in explaining why the party lost the election.
