MEDIA commentators cite the resignation of Alan Sugar from the Labour Party as proof that Ed Miliband was defeated because he took the party to the left.

Labour MPs must not be swayed by this rhetoric and should be more concerned by the 5 million votes that Labour lost between 1997 and 2010. 

Very few of those lost votes were from self-righteous, "self-made" millionaires who feel justified in lecturing everyone else on entrepreneurship and aspiration.

They were overwhelmingly working-class voters who were no less aspirational, even if their goals were of a different nature.

Those millions who abandoned Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown aspired to well-paid jobs on which they could look after their families. 

They aspired to have homes to live in at affordable rents near their parents, rather than being shunted far out of London and other major cities as council properties were sold off only to re-emerge later in the privately rented sector.

They aspired to have their children educated in excellent local authority neighbourhood schools but were told that they could only have academies.

The flight of votes from Labour was accelerated by New Labour's fixation with jumping aboard battle-wagons driven by US presidents, leaving entire countries in bloodshed and chaos and wasting billions of pounds that could have been spent on human need.

That Labour's defeat would be followed by "we were right, bring back New Labour" diatribes from the likes of Jack Straw, Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson was predictable. 

But the anti-Miliband comments of Chuka Umunna, Tristam Hunt, Liz Kendall and others indicate that he fought the election with one hand tied behind his back.

Ed Balls' Treasury team, including Umunna, Chris Leslie and Rachel Reeves, failed to challenge George Osborne's austerity agenda during the campaign because, essentially, they accepted the reasoning behind it.

Constant references to the supposed need for "tough decisions" on pay and benefits and refusal to consider any return to public ownership of vital industries throw assertions of a "left-wing" programme into stark perspective.

Miliband's ratings actually soared whenever he moved out of cosy orthodoxy, standing up to the Murdoch media, preventing another air war against Syria and pledging to freeze energy prices.

He plummeted when he retreated into New Labour arrogance and gimmickry, such as his refusal to accept that Labour may have to work with other anti-austerity forces in Parliament or having vague "pledges" etched in stone for installation in the Downing Street garden.

The Labour leader's inability to appreciate the depths to which Labour had sunk in Scotland can be laid indisputably at Jim Murphy's door and warrants his resignation or removal. 

The alacrity with which arch-Blairite Liz Kendall has thrown her hat in the ring illustrates that the Progress wing of the party would like the issue done and dusted before the autumn TUC and Labour conferences. 

Warnings from shopworkers' union Usdaw leader John Hannett and his general union GMB counterpart Paul Kenny should be heeded.

Being stampeded into a "beauty parade" leadership election, in which a concerted campaign by the billionaire media and Blairite spectres is mobilised behind a Tory-lite candidate, is the last thing that Labour needs.

There should be a no-holds-barred debate at the conferences on what went wrong before and during this year's election campaign.

There must also be a discussion on the policies needed to answer the aspirations of working-class voters who have turned their backs on Labour.