LABOUR and the trade unions should stop attacking Ed Miliband and gear up for a bumper fight against vicious new Tory anti-union laws, TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady urged yesterday.

In an impassioned address to the Fire Brigades Union conference, Ms O’Grady said the Tories’ election victory had been “great news for bankers, tax dodgers and media barons and bad news for all of us.”

And she slammed the right-wing Establishment for whipping up nationalism to push class politics out of the election campaign.

She criticised the opposition’s strategy, saying the party should have done more to nail Tory myths over the economy earlier on, but warned workers off ditching Labour.

“Labour conceded too much ground to the economics of austerity,” she said.

“But I don’t propose to indulge in that ugly sport [of attacking Mr Miliband].

“There’s been more than enough from the non-dom owners of the press without the left joining in.

“Ed Miliband is an essentially decent man with decent values.

“Some people will say that the answer is a new party of the left. Fair enough, that conversation needs to be had. But it’s not a view I share.”

She also slammed former Labour PM Tony Blair for wading into the row, saying of his evaluation that Labour lost because its agenda was too left-wing: “He is wrong.

“Any Labour manifesto worthy of the name should be about building houses… protecting the NHS.”

Warning the Tories would continue to pursue a “divide and rule” agenda, Ms O’Grady said Labour had been “caught by the SNP on the one hand and English nationalism on the other.”

“The Tories talked up [the threat of the SNP] because in many parts of England people feared they would be put second.

“They were feeding a culture where allegiance to country trumped loyalty to class.”

She said new proposals to limit picketing, impose strike ballot thresholds and ramp up scab labour amounted to “the most draconian, aggressive assault on basic labour rights anywhere in western Europe.”

“If you think we’re going to give up our freedom of speech… if you think we’re going to give our right to strike without a fight then you’d better think again,” she stormed.