LABOUR’S leadership election is “like watching Game of Thrones without the nudity,” left-wing MP John McDonnell told the conference of civil servants’ union PCS yesterday.

Mr McDonnell, who unsuccessfully contended the position in 2007 and 2010, said that candidates were “plotting” and trying “bribery” in an attempt to get endorsements from their parliamentary colleagues.

And he blasted them for failing to offer anything other than failed Blairite ideology.

“In the Labour Party we can have anyone, so long as they’re a Blairite,” he quipped.

“It’s ‘vote for me because I’m a Blairite and I’ve got a northern accent.’

“Or ‘vote for me because I’m posher than Cameron.’

“Or ‘vote for me because I’ll say anything the Mail want me to’.”

His remarks will be seen as a jibe at public school-educated Tristram Hunt, who withdrew from the contest yesterday after admitting that he had failed to gather the required 35 endorsements, and Mary Creagh, who launched her campaign with an article for MailOnline.

Addressing a PCS fringe meeting on Tuesday night, Mr McDonnell singled out another candidate, Blairite frontbencher Liz Kendall, for peddling “extremely dangerous” ideas about the role of the private sector in public services.

“She’s argued that what works is what matters and that seems to include privatisation,” he said.

“I heard (Labour MP) Pat McFadden the other day talking about aspiration and the middle ground. It’s all meaningless drivel.

“Labour’s never won an election on the basis of working-class votes alone. But the problem with New Labour was that it took working class voters for granted.”