UNSUCCESSFUL Darwen Labour candidate Will Straw said the party must win back voters in “the leafier bits” of the constituency to win there again.

The son of former Blackburn MP Jack said Labour failed to convince working class voters with ambitions that a change of government would help them.

Although Labour’s vote went up in the Rossendale and Darwen seat, sitting Tory MP Jake Berry increased his majority.

Writing on the Guardian comment blog, Mr Straw said: “The post-election debate has focused on two topics: leadership and ‘aspiration’.

“We almost certainly would have done better with a different leader. Although a decent and principled man, Ed Miliband never connected with the electorate.

“But it is true that we didn’t have enough to say to those in the leafier parts of Rossendale and Darwen whose votes we needed to win the seat.

“In the end the Tories trumped us on childcare and promised to take more people out of tax so we were left with an energy price freeze at a time when bills were no longer rising.

“If we want a majority again, we will need to think hard about how to win back the working-class voters, many of whom are highly aspirational, that we have lost in post-industrial areas.”