LABOUR frontbenchers have come out in support of leader Ed Miliband, crediting him for turning the party's fortunes around since the 2010 General Election.
Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint dismissed suggestions that Mr Miliband was seen as too "weird" to become Prime Minister, saying his "authenticity" was one of his major assets.
Speaking on BBC One's Sunday Politics, she said: "Ed is part of Labour's success, definitely, in the last few years."
Ms Flint said it was "ridiculous" 13% of people saw him as weird, saying where voting's concerned, people would be more interested in the cost of living crisis.
She said: "To be fair to Ed, Ed is not a politician who says: 'Do you know what? I'm down with the Arctic Monkeys, I know who's number one.'
"He doesn't try to play that game. He goes on Desert Island Discs and says he likes A-ha. He's not out there to try and portray himself as someone that's down with the kids, 'I know everything about popular culture'; he is who he is, and authenticity is the most important."
Meanwhile, East Renfrewshire MP and shadow international development secretary, Jim Murphy - who was demoted from the defence brief when Mr Miliband reshuffled his frontbench team last year - said Labour's leader had been successful in preventing the party tearing itself apart after the 2010 election defeat.
"Ed Miliband has delivered a united Labour Party which is unlike all the historical experience of the Labour Party, where we usually form a circular firing squad against each other when we lose an election," he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article