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There are many qualities we need in the next Labour leader, but there’s one we need above all.

It’s true we need someone combining life experience and political experience, who both understands the struggles ordinary people are going through every day, but can also hold the Tories to account for them.

We also need someone with a clear sense of priorities, and credible policies that will make a difference to the communities we serve, especially in our most-deprived towns and regions.

We need someone with a clear vision of where they want to take Britain and how they’re going to do it, but also the ability to unite our party and the whole country behind that vision.

We need someone with the strength to appoint the best MPs to the top jobs around them, and also the confidence to allow them to make their own decisions, and speak their own minds.

We need someone with the principles and values to determine their position on every issue based on what is right and what is wrong, and the wisdom to tell the difference.

(Image: PA)

We need someone with confidence and forensic skill at the Despatch Box, who can blow past Boris Johnson’s bluster and expose him for the feckless, lying charlatan that he is.

And we need someone with the conviction to speak their mind, but the courage to admit when they’ve made mistakes and take responsibility for them.

But above all of those qualities, what matters most is that we need someone who can win.

Politics is not a kids’ football game. It’s not the taking part that counts. We urgently need to win back the trust of the public and put Labour back into power. People’s lives and jobs depend on it.

(Image: Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)

So I believe any candidate for the leadership needs to make the solemn promise that I make to Mirror readers today. Something I don’t believe any leadership candidate of any party has been prepared to say in the past.

And it’s this. I know I have flaws. I know I’ve made mistakes in the past and paid a price for them. I know I’ll need to work tirelessly to persuade people to vote for me, and I believe I can do that.

But I will always put our party first. I will always do what I believe is best to ensure that Labour wins, because that is what our great but divided country needs.

So if I am elected leader, and if there is any stage where I know – and the polls and my colleagues tell me – that I can’t persuade people, and I can’t get us back into power, then I vow to do what I’ve always done throughout my life. I will be loyal to the party I love.

So I will stand down and give one of my brilliant colleagues the chance to win instead.

That’s what Andrew Little, New Zealand’s Labour leader, did in 2017, enabling his successor, the wonderful Jacinda Ardern, to sweep to power two months later.

Andrew put his party before his personal ambition, and he proved himself a great leader in the process.

Let’s all learn from that inside the UK Labour Party, and never again go into an election where we waste the chance of power, and let our communities get thrown to the Tory wolves