LABOUR activists yesterday accused former policy chief Jon Cruddas of asking “leading questions” after he claimed the party lost the election because it opposed austerity.

Mr Cruddas, who is leading an inquiry into Labour’s election loss, said new polling proved the public rejected his party because they saw slashing the deficit as the top priority.

Party rightwingers jumped on the findings to call for Labour to reject anti-austerity leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn — but others questioned Mr Cruddas’s conclusions.

The debate emerged as centrist leadership candidate Andy Burnham was criticised for echoing two losing manifestos in his policy on the railways.

Writing for LabourList, Mr Cruddas said his party “did not recognise the way the electorate is both economically radical and fiscally conservative.”

Fifty-eight per cent of those surveyed agreed with the statement: “We must live within our means so cutting the deficit is the top priority” — and just 16 per cent disagreed.

But 60 per cent agreed with the statement: “The economic system in this country unfairly favours powerful interests.”

Mr Cruddas argued: “On the basis of the data, the public appear to think anti-austerity is a vote loser — we cannot ignore that.

“We can seek to change the views of the public, but it’s best not to ignore them.”

But in a riposte on the same website, Ben Folley, a leading activist with the Labour Assembly Against Austerity, said this was the wrong conclusion to draw.

He said the statement cited by Mr Cruddas was “the kind of leading question that leads people to mistrust polling.”

“The Labour front bench still believe the deficit is the key issue, despite running a losing election campaign focused on it,” he wrote.

“They are as yet unable to break the mould set by the right and provide a new focus for debate.”

Mr Burnham will today set out a plan to “tear up the broken approach to awarding rail franchises and allow a publicly owned operator to take on lines.”

Mr Corbyn has called for the state to take over each franchise as they expire.