Purnell 'lost faith months ago'

Former Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell, who quit the cabinet last month, has said he lost faith in Gordon Brown as leader six months ago.

Mr Purnell told the Guardian he had been considering resigning since December because he no longer believed Mr Brown could win the next election.

But he had not expected other ministers to follow his lead when he quit during local and European elections, he said.

He also urged Labour to recapture the idealism of its first days in power.

In his first interview since leaving the Cabinet, Mr Purnell spoke of making the difficult decision to quit.

"I had been thinking, 'Has the elastic stretched beyond the point where I feel I am being true to myself?'" he said.

'Bit like Britpop'

Mr Purnell, who hinted that he was unlikely to return to frontbench politics, was one of the most senior ministers to walk out of Mr Brown's government last month and the only cabinet minister to call on the prime minister to stand down.

In his resignation letter, Mr Purnell told Mr Brown: "I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less likely."

"We need to open up New Labour, reinvent it and then eventually move beyond it"

In the interview, Mr Purnell urged his party to move beyond the idea of New Labour, but also admitted he was "nostalgic" for those early days.

"All those Blairite, New Labour labels… for me, it's a bit like Britpop - I feel nostalgic for it, it was absolutely right for its time but that time was 1994," he said.

"It's a very different feeling being 12 years into government from the idealism of the start, but we need to recapture that idealism, not by living in the past or by aping New Labour or just sticking to the old tunes.

"We need to open up New Labour, reinvent it and then eventually move beyond it."

On Monday, Mr Purnell will join left-wing Labour MP Jon Cruddas at the launch of a three-year project on the future of the Labour Party by thinktank Demos.

But he said he did not believe he would return to the Labour frontbenches.

"The way I am feeling at the moment it is pretty unlikely I'll want to go back into frontline politics," he said.

"I never want to leave politics - I love politics. I love ideas and I was pretty excited by the Department for Work and Pensions, but actually I get exactly the same kick, in some ways in a freer way, from the stuff I am doing at Demos."

Mr Purnell also revealed that he and Foreign Secretary David Miliband had met twice since his resignation and he called Mr Miliband "one of the most serious politicians of his generation".

The foreign secretary told the Guardian last month that he had also considered resigning from the government at the same time as Mr Purnell.

He said that although he reached a different conclusion, he respected the decision Mr Purnell had taken.

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