Healey warns Miliband against bid

Former Chancellor Denis Healey warned the Environment Secretary not to "take the risk" of heeding calls to throw his hat into the ring.

He also delivered a damning assessment of Tony Blair's time in Downing Street, blaming him for the current controversy over his successor and insisting that foreign policy errors such as invading Iraq had diminished the UK's standing.

The intervention came as a straw poll of Labour activists suggested the Chancellor would easily defeat any rival for the top job.

The Evening Standard survey found two thirds of constituency chairmen, branch officers and town hall group leaders in London and the South East backed Mr Brown. Although Mr Miliband was often described as "talented" and "capable", just one out of the 30 interviewed were willing to support him openly.

Mr Healey told GMTV's Sunday Programme there were no "serious challengers" who could stop Mr Brown becoming Prime Minister, and the "sooner he takes over the better".

"The tragedy again is that if Blair had gone when he apparently said he would at the meeting at Granita restaurant with Brown, none of these problems would have arisen. I think that Brown will do very well and I don't think he'll have any serious competition. Miliband would be wiped out if he stood against him."

He added: "I don't think it does well to attract a lot of favourable attention and then lose heavily. I'd advise him not to take that risk."

Mr Healey said the only figure who posed a threat to Mr Brown was former Home Secretary Charles Clarke, and he would not have a "real chance" of winning a contest. Controversies such as the cash-for-honours affair meant that history would not judge Mr Blair as a great Prime Minister, according to Mr Healey.

"I think in his first years he was very good indeed, but since the invasion of Iraq almost everything he's done has been bad for him and bad for the country - university entrance fees, cash for peerages above all."