IAN LAVERY'S decision to rule himself out of standing for the Labour leadership in favour of backing Andy Burnham speaks volumes for the parliamentary party's political complexion.

Despite the political exit of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, who both left Parliament to spend more time with their ill-gotten fortunes, their muckies remain imprinted on the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Voters and Labour's membership have had a gutful of the New Labour obsession with sucking up to the banks and other so-called wealth creators. 

But many Labour MPs, especially those parachuted into safe seats in Labour strongholds by the centralised party apparatus, remain true to this creed.

That's why John McDonnell and fellow leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn were frustrated at their inability to identify more than a score of MPs to support the candidacy of a consistently socialist champion, with Lavery himself a front-runner.

Chuka Umunna, Liz Kendall and Tristram Hunt are most closely associated with the New Labour approach.

Umunna parrots the same code words of enterprise and aspiration that mask indifference towards working-class concerns while Kendall repeats the New Labour "what works" mantra to justify private-sector penetration of our National Health Service. Hunt adopts Blair's "empathy with entrepreneurialism" that underpinned the entire New Labour pro-City of London line.

Yvette Cooper genuflects briefly in the direction of recognition that any attempt to return to the heady days of 1997 spells doom for Labour, but her talk of moving "beyond the old labels of left and right" betrays acceptance of neoliberal orthodoxy as somehoe non-ideological. 

If any of these becomes Labour leader, the prospects of election in 2020 are bleak.

Even if one of them wins the leadership contest then a subsequent general election, the working class could expect little from any administration headed by them.

Lavery's support for Burnham is undoubtedly framed around the shadow health secretary's sterling defence of the NHS during the conservative coalition government and his dogged pursuit, alongside Labour colleague Steve Rotheram, of justice for the 96 Liverpool FC football fans killed by South Yorkshire Police incompetence and then smeared in death by the police and the Murdoch media.

However, there are questions too over Burnham's record in office and his nostalgia for 1997.

When he says that he wants a Labour government to "speak for everyone and for the whole country" and address voters' aspirations as it did in 1997, he may simply desire a return to the euphoria many people experienced over the defeat of the Tories after 18 years. 

No matter how much Blair's entry into Downing Street was welcomed at the time, as were some of the Labour government's achievements in its first term, its subsequent record oozed corruption, plunder and murderous overseas wars.

Labour's defeat last week bore the scars of wounds inflicted to the party's credibility during the Blair-Brown years.

If Burnham is to be standard-bearer of the left in this leadership contest, he must acknowledge the damage done to the NHS on his watch by private finance initiatives and private-sector penetration.

Above all, there is no real point in a contest unless it proceeds on the basis of discussions about policy rather than media-driven froth about image, appearance and gossip. 

Trade unions and individual members have a responsibility to put pressure on all leadership hopefuls. 

Contestants must face demands to end policies that are a pale imitation of the Tories' pro-big business approach, to back expanded public ownership and to make well-paid jobs and working-class living standards central to Labour's campaign.