The Don’t Unseat Ed Miliband Association is thriving, followers on Twitter can now add a “Save Ed” logo to their profile image by clicking here. Get it on.

We hope to persuade Peter Hain to join us as a patron and ensure that Ed Miliband leads the Labour Party into the general election. For that is what we all want…

The evil Murdoch mouthpiece Adam Boulton was left speechless and humiliated by a confident Ed, who quelled all speculation about his leadership in an interview with Sky. Ed was particularly stwong and definitely did not wince when faced with the fact that only 6% of people believe that he has a credible economic plan. He also nailed that shocking question about whether he should stand down for the good of the party. The crisis is over…

UPDATE: Ed falsely claimed to Jon Snow that only 50% of Labour Party funds come from the unions, according to the official filings it is 86%.

Jon Snow should know better…

Video via LiarPoliticians

Guido is happy to welcome Jacking Ashley into the Don’t Unseat Ed Miliband Association, but he’s not sure she’s doing the cause any favours with this morning’s hysterical hyperbole. While discussing Ed’s critics she compares their behaviour to US Marines urinating on dead Afghans:

“It’s a game that the Westminster village has always enjoyed. Nick Clegg was last year’s victim, now it’s Ed’s turn. If enough pundits treat him as the US marines treated the Afghan dead, and if the public notices and reflects this contempt back through opinion polls, then somehow or other he might collapse.”

They even link back to the Guardian’s own coverage of the incident, just in case you missed this gloriously unsubtle point. Guido is still trying to work out whether the comparison with holding the Leader of the Opposition to account was done with a straight face. He has a feeling it was…

While Guido and other scribes have had their work cut out with the Don’t Unseat Ed Miliband Association, the bagcarrier based Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ed Miliband have moved up from postering the walls of parliament  to a whole video campaign:
Excellent commitment to the cause.

Watch how Ed effortlessly strikes down his critics and dismisses any speculation that he is losing control of his party as “Kremlinology”. Murdoch’s agitators fail again.

Ed’s eagerly anticipated fightback started this morning with a grilling on the Today Programme where he was cruelly told he wasn’t “too ugly” to be PM. This is being followed shortly by a widely trailed speech at the Oxo Tower on London’s Southbank. Brilliant news for those of us in the Don’t Unseat Ed Miliband Association…

Wags on Twitter may mock about Rubik’s cubes and Oxo cubes, but Ed won’t crumble easily and we in DUEMA are excited. It is a welcome chance for Ed to beef up his performance by delivering more than a stock speech. Critics of Ed always have wanted him to flesh out his definition of predatory capitalism by attacking  the City gravy train, this will be his chance to provide more ‘granularity’.  Oh yes.

So far even loyalists like Mark Ferguson of LabourList are underwhelmed by the advance spin

All the briefing from today's big Ed M speech suggests that there are still no specific policies in the pipeline labli.st/xvamFL—
Mark Ferguson (@Markfergusonuk) January 10, 2012

Pundits expect this to be another stage in the promised journey the Labour leader is taking from awkward Rubik’s cube-solving geek, via the current gaffe-prone ‘Block Ed’ to, hopefully, Oxo man appeal…

… if he doesn’t get into too much of a stew.

Hat-tip for puns:
@DavidJonesMP, @DavidMills, @GregSwinn, @lambgraeme, @heckmonwyke.

Last week it was Glasman, Byrne and Murphy having their say about Labour’s direction under Ed, today it’s his own brother. David Miliband has called for Labour to apologise for more of the things that they got wrong in government. Ed Balls attempted a “sorry we didn’t regulate enough”, but the big brother clearly thinks Ed should go further:

“There’s a debate in the Labour Party about how we should understand our record in government, what we should be proud of and what we should apologise for. But I think it’s very important to be proud of your achievements and humble about your mistakes…”

It is one line in particular that will make waves, he goes on to say in an interview today in India’s The Hindu that: “I think for everyone in the Labour Party, it feels very frustrating at the moment.” 

The source of that frustration of course being his brother… 

The Don’t Unseat Ed Miliband Association had a shaky baptism of fire last week. Both big mouths and events caused no end of trouble. So good news then that Labour are looking to hire a spinner solely for rapid rebuttal:

Labour Party
Job Description

Job title: Executive Director, Rebuttal and Policy
Location: Based at Head Office London

Key Purpose: Provide strategic leadership responsible for designing the Party’s policy programme and managing the research and rebuttal functions necessary to carry out this role

Working with the leadership, shadow cabinet and all parts of the Party, to co-ordinate and implement a winning policy agenda to lead into the next general election

Establish a rapid rebuttal function to allow the Party to respond quickly and effectively to claims made about the Party’s policy positions

Guido is looking forward to sparring…

Guido hears that Miliband is preparing a Brown-style relaunch next week. He’s booked into Tuesday morning’s Today programme and will then head to the Oxo Tower, not for a stock speech, but to have another crack at the much derided Predators v Producers idea. It should give him some much needed gravy-tas