Labour leadership hopeful Yvette Cooper today derided left-wing front runner Jeremy Corbyn and said the battle was on for the soul of the the party.

Ms Cooper offered a more "feminist" approach to politics and said Mr Corbyn was not a radical alternative but "offering old solutions to old problems, not new answers to the problems of today".

Speaking at a gathering of supporters in Manchester, Ms Cooper said: "So tell me what you think is more radical?

"Bringing back clause IV? Spending billions of pounds we haven't got switching control of some power stations from a group of white middle aged men in an energy company to a group of white middle aged men in Whitehall?"

And she told party members a really radical approach would be to back her as a woman to lead the party.

She continued: "A Labour Party after a century of championing equality and diversity which turns the clock back to be led again by a leader and deputy leader, both white men.

"Or to smash our own glass ceiling to get Labour's first elected woman leader and woman prime minister too. Who's the real radical? Jeremy or me?"

Ms Cooper, 46, the MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, has been left in the wake of left-wing firebrand Mr Corbyn, along with Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall.

More than 600,000 people are set to choose the next Labour leader amid warnings from Tony Blair that the party risks "annihilation" under Mr Corbyn.

Ms Cooper said the fight for the party was not about personalities but about the future of the country.

She continued: "Too often in this race people have suggested that only one candidate has principles. Rubbish.

"I joined the party I love a quarter of a century ago because I believe in something. That the world needn't be this way.

"That the gap between rich and poor is too big

"That markets should serve humanity not humanity serve markets.

"That diplomacy is better than war, but sometimes you have to be ready to fight for justice.

"But our party is facing a crisis in our identity - and it hasn't come from nowhere."

Ms Cooper said often the right not the left across Europe had benefited politically since the financial crash.

"At the election we didn't offer enough optimism for those with strong aspirations for their future," she said.

"But also enough reassurance and support for those who felt left behind at the end of the line.

"Our party started in the workplace solidarity of the industrial revolution.

"Now we have to build a new argument for social solidarity in a post industrial age.

"But when times are tough, and the old answers, and the old parties don't seem to be working, people cast around for something else.

"Something different. Something subversive. Something to kick out at the system, to express anger, frustration and the demand for change

"In different ways that's fuelled support for the SNP and for Ukip.

"And so now in the Labour Party, in the yearning for answers and for Britain to change, I can see why many people have bought into what Jeremy is offering."

Ms Cooper said she did not "dismiss" Mr Corbyn's values and intentions but he was not the answer.

Ms Cooper continued: "We have to look the 21st century in the eye, face up to the future.

"That's where we will find the new radicalism, the answers in the modern fight for social justice, equality and solidarity

"Not the old answers of the past.

"They won't change the world, they will keep us out of power and stop us changing the world."

Ms Cooper continued: "We can't just luxuriate in our own righteousness out on the sidelines.

"That's not a luxury the most vulnerable in Britain can afford.

"It's not enough to be angry at the world. We're the Labour Party, we have a responsibility to change the world or what's the point of us at all?"

Ms Cooper said the real radical approach is to reform capitalism so it serves people, "not to try to destroy it with nothing to put in its place".

She continued: "And we need what is, bluntly, a much more feminist approach to our economy and society.

"Put family at the centre of our economy. As any parent will tell you, that would be really radical and it would transform families' lives.

"Stop families being stretched and stained to fit round work, and change work to fit round family life.

"Universal free childcare should be as much the infrastructure of the modern economy as trains, planes and boys toys."

Ms Cooper also attacked Mr Corbyn's foreign policy approach.

She added: "Is it really radical to quit Nato, to prevaricate over membership of the EU, or trash our reputation as an internationalist party.

"I say no.

"We should stay in the EU, stay in the European Court of Human Rights, stay in Nato - sorry, Jeremy, internationalism is a core Labour principle and I will always fight for it."

Ms Cooper said she agreed with Mr Corbyn about the need for an alternative to austerity and not to "swallow the Tories' myths" about Labour and the deficit, but the alternative needed to be "credible".

She said Mr Corbyn's plan of "quantative easing for the people" was "really bad economics".

She added: "It won't stand up to scrutiny. And it won't get us elected.

"And that matters. Because otherwise we let people down."

But she offered party members hope that power can be wrested from a "narrow Tory elite" running the country.

She concluded: "They only have a majority of 12. We can beat them.

"So this is the choice.

"Between a Labour Party back on its feet, fighting the Tories, fighting for our principles, fighting for our future

"And a Tory Britain while Labour walks away.

"This is about the 2020 election.

"I'm in it to win it. The Labour Party must be too."