LABOUR PARTY chiefs should not poke their noses into industrial disputes, leadership frontrunner Andy Burnham told the Morning Star this weekend.

Ex-leader Ed Miliband faced ridicule for slamming striking teachers and civil servants nine months into his leadership in 2011, repeatedly telling an interviewer that “these strikes are wrong” and “the public are being let down by both sides.”

But asked if he would take the same approach, Mr Burnham said: “It’s not our place to comment on these issues.”

The shadow health secretary and Merseyside MP has won plaudits from trade unionists for campaigning for justice for victims of the Hillsborough disaster and his defence of the NHS.

But he faced criticism for kowtowing to Tory myth-making when he announced that he would not accept donations to his leadership campaign from trade unions.

Mingling at the Durham Miners’ Gala this weekend, he insisted he had taken this decision in the best interests of the labour movement.

“I didn’t take trade union donations for one reason only — to put myself in the strongest position possible to defend trade union money as the cleanest money in politics,” he told the Star.

He said the gala represented “a great tradition of working-class culture.”

“As leader I’ll be back,” he said.

“I’m someone who knows our history and doesn’t want to repudiate it.”