Labour MP George Mudie savages Ed:

“The bad side is, you know, the bunker mentality that gets round leaders, one of Ed’s problems really is that he’s young, and, of course, the way he came to power – the problem with his brother, the fact that the trade unions had a major say and I still think he’s trying to find himself. And the trouble with that is that sometimes he’s doing things that he thinks a leader should do, that he shouldn’t do. He should use his own judgment and his own belief on how he should act, etc. etc. and forget about how does a leader react.

I think one of the difficulties a Labour Party member would say to you, and I would say to you, I have difficulty knowing what we stand for now. We are 18 months away from an election thinking that we will put out a document on all these major items and the public will say, “oh great.” And I think, often, at the moment, the government are setting the agenda, making the weather and we’re responding to it. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown never did that.

Well, there has to be and there is some concern that the lead we have in the polls, first of all is not firm enough, big enough, but will it withstand a General Election discussion? But the real thing is, do you know, ‘cos I don’t, know our position on welfare, do you know our position on education, do you know our genuine position on how we’d run the health service? Now so if you’re not getting a clear enough message to me, and to some of my colleagues, what are you, what kind of message do you think you’re putting out there. I remember before we won, ‘92, the five years to ’97, this place was bubbling, we were energetic, we were at them, we thought we had all the answers. We’re not at them and we’re slightly hesitant and we’re slightly confused and I deeply worry about that.”