Labour leadership election: Owen Smith apologises for saying he wants to ‘smash Theresa May back on her heels’

The Labour leadership hopeful had spent the day defending his remarks about the Prime Minister

Owen Smith launches his 20 left-wing polices in Rotherham (Charlotte Graham)

Owen Smith has been forced to apologise after saying it pained him Labour did not have the strength to "smash" Theresa May "back on her heels".

After initially brushing off criticism of his comment, the Labour leadership candidate’s spokesman said: “It was off script and on reflection it was an inappropriate choice of phrase and he apologises for using it.”

Mr Smith, the MP for Pontypridd and the former shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, made the remark as he set out 20 left-wing policies he will use to appeal to Jeremy Corybn's supporters in the party.

Ahead of a speech to be delivered on the highly-symbolic site of the former Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire, Mr Smith said: “Theresa May even had the temerity to… lecture Labour on social injustice, on insecurity at work and I’ll be honest with you it pained me we didn’t have the strength, the power and the vitality to smash her back on her heels and argue that these are our values.

But Mr Smith described his remarks as “robust rhetoric”, adding: "We should be smashing the Tories back on their heels. Their ideals, their values, let's smash them, let's get Labour in.

“It's rhetoric, I don't literally want to smash Theresa May back on her heels, I'm not advocating violence in any shape or form.”

The leadership contender, who is standing on a “save Labour” platform, also agreed that a poll suggesting around 29 per cent of those who voted Labour at the 2015 general election would now prefer Ms May as PM reflected a “major problem” for the party.

“I read that in the paper this morning and my heart sank," he said.

“What a measure of how low we have fallen as Labour - it should be a wake-up call for us all in Labour that it is high time for us to become a much more powerful opposition and a government in waiting.

"What an indictment of us that anybody can consider the Tories to be a better bet than us."

Mr Smith also gave Mr Corbyn “some gratitude” for the way in which he “helped the Labour party reconnect with radicalism” and “pushed us towards being a bit more radical and robust in our policy”.

Former shadow Cabinet minster Lisa Nandy, an ally of Mr Smith's, said his choice of language was wrong but insisted he was not sexist. "I think he has recognised, rightly, that was the wrong choice of words," she told BBC Radio 4's World At One.

"He regretted the choice of words that he used because it created an impression that he was talking about Theresa May's heels when, actually, what he was trying to say is it's horrendous that in the last few months we haven't been able to take on the Government about some of the things they are doing."