BRITAIN’S first-ever black female MP, Diane Abbott, believes Liverpool has much to celebrate after 13 years of a Labour government.

As the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, she has a special affinity with Britain’s great port cities.

And she is enthusiastic at the progress achieved thanks to investment in Merseyside.

But she is also the most critical of New Labour among the five leadership contenders.

She is firmly on the Left, bills herself as the main grassroots candidate and distances herself from the “bad aspects” of the Tony Blair-Gordon Brown era.

She is distinctive from the others in almost every way – ethnic background, gender, political hinterland in councils and on the backbenches.

After Labour’s election defeat in June, the 56-year-old mum-of-one decided to stand because she felt there was “little choice” between the rest of the field – rival brothers David and Ed Miliband, Liverpool-born Andy Burnham and arch-Brownite Ed Balls.

She is the only one never to have held a ministerial post, but she regards that as a bonus.

She told the ECHO: “I have been in the party longer than any of them and an MP for twice as long.

“I am a strong trade unionist and one of the biggest failings of New Labour was its refusal to scrap the Tory curbs on the unions.”

She believes the next leader of the opposition will have to be a “great communicator” and she certainly has high media visibility, appearing alongside Michael Portillo on the BBC’s weekly political digest, This Week.

She said: “I have a breadth of experience the others lack.

“I am the biggest threat to David Cameron and the Lib- Cons because I was not part of the previous administration, which they love to blame for everything.

“I was not implicated in some of the worst aspects of New Labour, notably the scrapping of the 10p tax band, tuition fees and the Iraq war.”

That said, however, she acknowledges the achievements across Merseyside, in particular “the tremendous regeneration and redevelopment of the city centre”.

She said: “As I went around Liverpool this week, I could see the fantastic impact.

“Investment in the NHS was also very visible with some fantastic hospitals.

“Labour also made a dent in unemployment, although much needs to be done.

“Money poured into inner- city areas like Liverpool and my own London borough of Hackney.

“Before that, the Conservatives shamelessly directed cash away from the inner cities and into the Tory shires.

“Things are by no means perfect, but I think any Liverpudlian would agree that things have improved.”