Miliband ally tells the rich: you should pay higher taxes

Mr Hain revealed that Mr Miliband would take a high degree of personal control over his party's economic policy. This would be a marked change from the Blair era, when Gordon Brown's iron grip over the remit during his time as Chancellor allowed him to create his own power base from No 11.

It also sheds further light on Mr Miliband's decision not to hand the job of shadow Chancellor to Ed Balls, one of his rivals in the party's leadership contest, who has repeatedly pushed Labour to abandon its former policy of halving the deficit over four years.

"Alan will be a very able shadow Chancellor, and he's shown in all the jobs he's done that he can pick up a brief and sprint with it," Mr Hain told the website Labour Uncut. "What people forget is Ed is an economist. He's not a party leader who's going to chair a range of views and attract a synthesis.

"He's got a very clear idea of where he wants to go on the economy and the deficit and we'll set that out. We'll both be offering a serious alternative."

Mr Johnson will also be confronted about the disagreement between him and Mr Miliband over the introduction of a graduate tax. In an open letter to the newly elected leader before he was made shadow Chancellor, Mr Johnson urged him to drop the policy.

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