New blow for Jeremy Corbyn as Harriet Harman dismisses Labour election results as 'not nearly good enough'

The former deputy party leader urged Mr Corbyn to follow the example of Sadiq Khan, who 'reached out beyond Labour's core base'

Harriet Harman today became the latest senior Labour figure to attack Jeremy Corbyn saying that the party’s election results were "not nearly good enough".

The former deputy party leader urged Mr Corbyn to follow the example of Sadiq Khan, who "reached out beyond Labour's core base" to become Mayor of London.

Her comment came just hours after Mr Corbyn ordered his MPs to cut out public criticism of his leadership as he defended the party's recent performance at the ballot box at a meeting on last night.

"I think we are all very clear that, although we are one point ahead of the Tories in the share of the vote in the elections - compared to we were seven points behind last year in the general election - that is not nearly good enough," Ms Harman told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"Obviously we need to be doing better and Jeremy Corbyn said that himself at the PLP last night. We need to be doing better if we are going to be able to get into government and put our policies into action."

The Labour leader directly confronted unrest in the ranks fuelled by last week's election results when he addressed the weekly gathering of his MPs and peers at Westminster.

He conceded that the party was "not yet doing enough" to win back power in 2020 and acknowledged the need to broaden the appeal of his message - but insisted things were moving in the right direction.

Mr Khan, whose victory in the London mayoral contest provided the Opposition with an eye-catching result, was greeted with cheers as he arrived at the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting.

He warned that Labour risked missing an "open goal" unless it showed itself to be "a credible government-in-waiting" which focused on the issues and rejected an "us and them approach".