With Ed continuing to plummet in the polls and Labour peers voting against the wishes of Labour voters on the benefits bill, Guido is not that surprised to learn that a crisis meeting has been called, for after PMQs tomorrow at 1230, there will be a briefing session on public attitudes to Labour and welfare reform in the Shadow Cabinet room for members of the PLP.

The session will be lead by James Morris, who is seconded from pollsters Greenberg Quinlan Rosner to Team Ed. He will break the news to the MPs gently, by running through Labour’s private polling. The Shadow Cabinet will be coaxed towards an understanding of the attitudes of that reality based community, better known as the voting public, with hard data about what the public think about Labour’s position on welfare and welfare reform generally. Guido hopes that Morris will offer a slightly more astute and sophisticated analysis than he tweeted last night:

Poll round up: Labour leads in populus and yougov, level in comres, behind in icm—
James Morris (@JamesDMorris) January 24, 2012

This benefits cap issue is toxic for Labour, who are violently out of sync with the public here, in particular their own lower-income working voters. Oh to be a fly on the wall tomorrow…

#pmqs a clear win for Ed. Cameron failed to answer a single question!—
Peter Hain (@PeterHain) December 14, 2011

Peter Hain is considered by Ed Miliband’s people to be something of an elder statesman, he was an early backer of Ed for leader and has reaped the benefit of that since. After what was a mauling at PMQs, judged one of Ed’s worst outings by many, Hain’s judgement was up there with the legendary Comical Ali. He reached for that old standby, blaming the Tory press…

Right-wing media full of praise for right-wing PM. Quelle surprise!—
Peter Hain (@PeterHain) December 14, 2011

Unfortunately in reality even the friendly left-wing press were underwhelmed. The Guardian’s Nicholas Watt, the Indy’s John Rentoul, Newsnight’s comrade Paul Mason, ubiquitous leftie Owen Jones and LabourList’s Mark Ferguson were all shaking their heads wistfully.

The more neutral observers such as the BBC’s Nick Robinson said that Miliband had “taken a pasting”, Total Politics described it as “excruciating to watch“. It was especially excruciating for Labour’s backbenchers and frontbenchers alike who go home for Christmas behind in the polls and on the wrong side of the public on Europe and the economy. Some are even talking of a Yvette Cooper / David Miliband dream ticket next year. That is how desperate they are getting…

Neo-Guido is in Russia nursing a hang-over and Guido is otherwise engaged. Sorry.

It seems Ed Miliband misled the House when he said that “under 13 years of a Labour Government, youth unemployment never reached 1 million…” The Department of Education statistics for young people not in employment, education, or training show that the number of young people who were unemployed under Labour hovered below a million all through 2008/09. However you can guess what happened in the third quarter of 2009 – the number of young unemployed hit 1,074,000, when the Work and Pensions Secretary was one Yvette Cooper. An apology to the House is the usual form…