Blair warns UK's Labour not to lurch left in leadership race

Former prime minister Tony Blair weighed in on the leadership contest in Britain's opposition Labour party Wednesday as a new poll electrified the race by putting leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn ahead.

Blair, a moderniser who was Labour's longest-serving premier, urged the party to avoid tacking to the left if it is to recover from a crushing defeat in May's general election and win the next one in 2020.

"When people say my heart says I should really be with that (leftwing) politics -- well, get a transplant, because that's just dumb," a tanned Blair said in rare public comments on the issue to a packed meeting of several hundred Labour supporters in central London.

"I wouldn't want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. In other words, even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn't take it."

Blair, who argues Labour should occupy the centre ground, added he would not endorse any single candidate for the party leadership following the resignation of Ed Miliband after the election defeat.
A YouGov poll for The Times newspaper Wednesday suggested Corbyn would win the final round of voting in the leadership race with a 17 point lead on first preference votes.

Nicknamed "Comrade Corbyn" by the press, he is anti-austerity and opposed the 2003 Iraq war over which Blair is still deeply unpopular among many Britons.

Centrists argue that choosing Corbyn as leader would make Labour unelectable and would allow Prime Minister David Cameron's centre-right Conservatives to stay in power for longer.

The new leader is due to be elected by party members and supporters on September 12.

Blair led the party between 1994 and 2007, winning an unprecedented three successive general elections from 1997 onwards before his resignation.