Rebels urged to get behind Brown

Mr Miliband, the favourite to win any leadership contest, said the conference in Manchester should be a demonstration that the party had the "idealism and drive" needed to solve Britain's problems.

"The Labour Party conference is a five-day opportunity for the party to put a strong, determined, clear, unified face before the public," he told the Daily Mirror.

"It is time for the party to come together. I've made it clear I don't think it's the time for a leadership election. It's time to address the fundamental challenges - that's why it's the time to pull together.

"This is a very testing time, but the point about tests is you pull together and you meet them. We need to show we understand the gravity of the challenges being put to the country, that we have the imagination and resolve to address them and the firmness of purpose to help people's lives."

Mr Miliband landed himself in hot water with an article in The Guardian in July setting out a prescription to cure Labour's ills - without mentioning Gordon Brown by name once.

And he raised eyebrows again earlier this month when he declared that Mr Brown was displaying "more vigour and determination" than before - seen by some as a signal such qualities were lacking previously.

But en route to Manchester, he said: "When I look at Gordon, (Chancellor) Alistair (Darling), our team of ministers, we've got people who haven't lost the hunger for government - and when I look at our party members, I know they know the difference between government and opposition.

"They haven't forgotten the dark days of opposition and the damage it does to the country."

He said he hated "defeatism" about the UK or Labour.