He's weak. He's a loser. The public think he's weird. It's impossible to imagine him as prime minister. Labour has a problem and its name is Ed. That's how the press campaign against the Labour leader has gone for most of this month, fed by Ed Miliband's sagging personal poll ratings and a New Labour whispering campaign.
You'd barely know from most of the coverage that Labour continues to lead the polls by several points, despite the much-vaunted economic recovery, or that his most unpopular policies with the media are highly popular with the public or that Margaret Thatcher's ratings lagged well behind Jim Callaghan's when she was elected prime minister. It's not that Miliband doesn't have a communication problem, or struggle to connect with the working class voters Labour needs, in particular, to win back. He clearly does although the idea that his brother, David, would have escaped similar ridicule as an out-of-touch geek if he had won the leadership can't be taken seriously, quite apart from his links to some of the most discredited parts of New Labour's record.
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