Yvette Cooper launched a scathing attack on Labour leadership front-runner Jeremy Corbyn

Yvette Cooper launched a scathing attack on Labour leadership front-runner Jeremy Corbyn yesterday and claimed the party should no longer be run by ‘white men’.

The Shadow Home Secretary insisted she was the ‘real radical’ and made the case to be Labour’s first woman leader – saying the party needed a ‘feminist approach to our economy and society’.

She hit out at the prospect of ‘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. Who’s the real radical? Jeremy or me?’

Former minister Tom Watson is widely expected to win the deputy leadership under Mr Corbyn.

Miss Cooper claimed that the policies of veteran left-winger Mr Corbyn offered only ‘old solutions to old problems’ and would keep the party out of power. She is the first of his three rivals to directly attack Mr Corbyn, who is now favourite to win the leadership. Ballot papers will be sent out to 600,000 party members and supporters today.

Tony Blair has already warned that the party would face ‘annihilation’ under Mr Corbyn, and yesterday former cabinet minister Jack Straw weighed in to say: ‘I know Jeremy and I know Jeremy simply could not do this job.’ Miss Cooper accused Mr Corbyn, the MP for Islington North, of advocating an economic strategy based on ‘printing more and more money’ and making ‘false promises’ about reopening coal mines.

In an unusually personal attack, she warned in a speech in Manchester: ‘I’m not going to dismiss the values and the intentions of Jeremy and those who are supporting him.

Former minister Tom Watson, right, is widely expected to win the deputy leadership under Mr Corbyn, left

JOIN FORCES AGAINST CORBYN, URGES LEADERSHIP RIVAL LIZ KENDALL Liz Kendall has called on the other Labour leadership candidates to team up to defeat Jeremy Corbyn. Liz Kendall is currently fourth in the leadership battle and urged her supporters to back Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper The shadow care minister who is running a distant fourth in the contest, urged her supporters to back Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper behind her on the voting form. The system allows Labour members and supporters to rank the candidates in order of preference, with the votes of the first candidate knocked out transferred to the others. The move may prove futile, however, if Mr Corbyn is elected in the first round as polls suggest. Miss Kendall told The Independent: ‘I will be using my second and third preferences. It won’t be for Jeremy. ‘I will be strongly urging all of those who are putting me as their first preferences to use their second and third preferences. ‘I have set out very clearly where I differ with all the candidates but our differences with Jeremy’s kind of politics are far greater.’ Advertisement

‘But nor am I going to pander or pretend I agree with them on the answers, and claim I’m just a more electable version of what they stand for. Because the truth is that Jeremy is offering old solutions to old problems, not new answers to the problems of today.

‘I understand Jeremy has strong support. But I feel really strongly – not just as a leadership candidate but as a Labour Party member that desperately wants an effective Labour government – that his are the wrong answers for the future.’

Miss Cooper, a former minister, has been criticised for running a tepid campaign calculated not to offend any section of the party.

Mr Corbyn was in Scotland yesterday for the first of four rallies he is holding in major cities.