KENT Labour backbencher Derek Wyatt has insisted his party has no reason to be pessimistic about its prospects at the next general election, despite suffering signficant council losses.

The Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP declared there would be "all to play for" when Gordon Brown took over but said Labour could have fared better if Tony Blair had quit last summer.

"David Cameron has not made the breakthrough that he needed in the council elections...it would have helped if the Prime Minister had stood down last August," he said.

But Mr Wyatt, who has the smallest majority of all Kent’s Labour MPs, said: "It is not a breakthrough for the Tories. We are up one per cent in terms of our share of the vote to 27 per cent.

"In 2004, we were at a similar point and went on to win the general election in 2005. There is some way to go and we will have everything to play for."

However, he called for a clear out of what he called "dross" in the cabinet, saying the party had to bring in new faces.

"We have to rebuild and get rid of some of the dross. We need new faces who will speak for the country, not for Tony Blair."