Former PM tweets his full support saying he believes Labour leader will beat Tories and his remarks were misinterpreted

Tony Blair has been forced to deny claims that he believes Labour will not win the 2015 election because Ed Miliband is too leftwing and UK elections are won in the centre ground.

The implication that the former Labour leader believes Miliband will lose was made on the basis of an interview with the Economist and could be highly damaging to Miliband as he prepares to launch his long election campaign next week.

However, on Wednesday morning, Blair tweeted: “My remarks have been misinterpreted, I fully support Ed and my party and expect a Labour victory in the election.”

Tony Blair Office (@tonyblairoffice) TB: "My remarks have been mis-interpreted, I fully support Ed and my party and expect a Labour victory in the election."

It is not known how Blair believes his remarks were misinterpreted, but his rebuttal suggests he does not intend to play a wrecking game for Miliband in the election.

He was reported as telling the Economist that the result might well be an election “in which a traditional leftwing party competes with a traditional rightwing party, with the traditional result”.

Asked if he meant a Tory win, Blair said: “Yes, that is what happens.”

The former PM also said he saw no evidence of a shift to the left in public thinking after the financial crisis – a move that Miliband thinks has occurred.

“I am still very much New Labour and Ed would not describe himself in that way, so there is obviously a difference there,” he added. “I am convinced the Labour party succeeds best when it is in the centre ground.”

In October, Blair’s office insisted the former prime minister believed Miliband would win the next general election, following a report that he had told friends that Labour was not ready to beat the Conservatives in May. The report in the Daily Telegraph said Blair had told long-standing political allies that David Cameron would remain in power next year because Labour had not persuaded Britain it is ready to govern.

Labour sources pointed out that Blair had said something similar in an earlier interview with Progress magazine, the journal of centrist Labour supporters.

In the magazine he is reported as saying he is convinced that a third way emphasis on “strong values, but practical, non-ideological solutions” is “definitely where people are”, even if, he argues, “it’s often not where political parties are because they want to appeal to their activists”.

But he argues that Labour should beware: “There’s a huge desire in a large part of the media in this country to return British politics to a traditional Tory party fighting a traditional Labour party.” Such a contest, the only man who has led Labour to victory in the last 40 years concludes grimly, always results in “a traditional result”.

Miliband continues to enjoy a lead in almost every opinion poll, with most suggesting Labour will at least be the largest party after next year’s election.

However, some senior Labour figures are worried about Miliband’s low personal popularity ratings and the fact he is trailing behind Cameron in terms of confidence in his running of the economy.

Lucy Powell, the party’s vice-chairman of the election campaign, said she respected Blair but the solutions he provided in the nineties were right for that era when she said it seemed right to leave capitalism alone to provide resources for public services such as education.

She told the BBC World at One: “He has his experience from his era. That is not the era we now live in.”

But she added that for most voters phrases such as left and right meant little. She said that since the crash it had been proved necessary to intervene, but denied Labour had alienated business, pointing out that Miliband’s speech to the CBI with a strong pro-European message had proved more popular with business than that of David Cameron, who spoke on the same day.

David Lammy, a candidate to stand for Labour to be London mayor, said Labour needed to listen to Blair’s warnings.

“I don’t think anyone should underestimate a leader of the Labour party who won three consecutive elections and fought hard to make Labour electable again after 18 years in opposition. So of course we should take what Tony Blair is saying very seriously indeed.”

Lammy said he agreed with Blair that Labour could not offer only a “traditional leftwing” platform at the next election.

“It’s clear that post the crash in 2008, it may well be that the British public’s mood and temperament might appear more leftwing than was the case in the past. So clearly energy freezing is important to the electorate, but I think it is also true that the Labour party has to be the party of aspiration; we should not cede this ground to the Conservatives.”

He also endorsed Blair’s call for Labour not to alienate businesses, but pointed to the party’s pro-European stance, adding that Labour was ahead in the polls.

Blair’s comments have overshadowed Miliband’s new year message to the electorate, in which he promised a recovery that “reaches your kitchen table” and urged the country to choose a “new beginning” in 2015.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ed Miliband’s new year message

Miliband’s festive message, apparently recorded at his home, shows the Labour leader flanked by a Christmas tree and casually dressed in a shirt and navy blue jumper.

The message was heavily influenced by David Axelrod, a former adviser to Barack Obama, hired by Miliband as a strategic adviser for the election campaign, and was designed not to be negative in its tone.

Miliband said: “This is the season for new beginnings and hopes for the future.

“And Britain is ready for a new beginning. Because I don’t have to tell you that, all over our country today, there are people working harder and harder, but standing still: families struggling with bills that are growing faster than their wages; young people, taking on mountains of debt to get a proper education, only to find themselves with no job at the other end; and an NHS where people are waiting longer and longer to get the care they need.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. As this new year dawns, we have the chance to change direction.”

Miliband said he stood for a “new plan that cuts our deficit responsibly, without threatening our NHS or short-changing our children and their future”.

“This year, we have the power to bring about the change working families all over Britain need. This isn’t about idle dreams or empty promises. It’s about a real, concrete plan: a plan for a recovery which reaches your kitchen table.”

Miliband said that in the runup to the election he would be setting out ideas to raise wages, give young people more opportunities, “set fair rules for immigration” and “rescue our NHS”.

“We have it within our grasp not just to see out the old year but to see out the old ways of running the country,” he said.

“Can we do it? Of course we can.”

Miliband is also facing some criticism about a lack of diversity among candidates in winnable seats. Research found just one candidate out of those in 34 seats where an incumbent MP is retiring is from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background.

Separately, Ian Lavery, Labour MP for Wansbeck in Northumberland, has been quoted by the Telegraph as telling a party event that an elite in Westminster looked down on his accent.

He is reported to have said: “We haven’t got enough ethnic minorities, we haven’t got enough disabled people in, who have actually been there. We’ve got an elite in, we’ve got an elite in Westminster which quite frankly frightens me. They haven’t been anywhere or done anything, and when you’ve got an accent like mine they think: ‘Well, that man doesn’t really know too much.’”