Mr Balls said the campaign had enabled the party to look forward not back Labour must end its obsession with courting favourable coverage from newspapers, leadership contender Ed Balls has said.
Mr Balls told the BBC that it was “absolutely essential” the next leader no longer “fudges” and “kowtows” to newspapers like the Daily Mail.
The desire to appease certain newspapers had contributed to Labour’s election defeat, he suggested.
He is one of five candidates standing, with the result due on 25 September.
Mr Balls, regarded to be trailing behind frontrunners David Miliband and Ed Miliband in the contest, said that in recent years Labour had acted as if keeping certain newspapers on side was more important than being clear about what it stood for.
“I felt he [Gordon Brown] trimmed and fudged his message to try and keep the Daily Mail happy in a way which meant that people did not know where we stood. I told him that many times,” the shadow education secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
“In the end, if you fudge your message and kowtow in one direction, to the extent that the Labour voter does not know where you stand, you pay a price.”
As well as the Miliband brothers, Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham are standing in the contest.
All five candidates are taking part in a special edition of the BBC’s Question Time later on Thursday.
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