Whispering campaign haunts Ed 'can he hack it?' Miliband

HE SHOULD be flying high, given David Cameron's difficulties with the Tory eurosceptics. Instead Ed Miliband will enter the chamber for Prime Minister's Questions today with a whispering campaign against him.

Labour MPs are asking - can he hack it?

There are questions about his failure to deliver any serious blows on Cameron. Last week he even failed to deliver his soundbite correctly. He said George Osborne spent more on his skiing holidays than dinner ladies earned in a week - he meant in a year.

But Miliband's lack of impact is to do with more than presentation. As the normally sympathetic Independent points out today in an editorial headlined 'Time to lay the ghosts of Labour's economic past', the two Eds, Miliband and Balls, lack a credible economic policy.

Balls was stung by Tory taunts yesterday that he was making up policy on the hoof. Speaking in a debate on the economy in the House of Commons, the shadow chancellor said: "There is no possibility of any British government joining the euro in my lifetime."

So, this is now official Labour policy, Tories were asking. That Labour will not join the euro while Ed Balls is alive? It may be convenient in the middle of a euro crisis but it is no way to set out a convincing strategy. The two Eds – as Osborne pointed out - have rejected every single cut he has put forward but have not said what they would do instead.

Labour should have a double digit lead in the polls but most surveys put them only a couple of points ahead now. The ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph even had the Tories ahead.

The Mole hears that the grumbling among Labour MPs is likely to reach fever pitch for Miliband next May when – it seems inevitable – the Labour candidate Ken Livingstone gets thrashed by Boris Johnson in the London mayoral election

"We are not just going to lose," says one Labour MP with a London seat. "We are going to get slaughtered. Labour voters are telling me they won't vote for Livingstone."

Labour backbenchers will be furious at losing two London elections in a row and will question whether they can ever win nationally under Miliband.

The Labour left suspects the Blairite group Movement for Change is positioning itself to be kingmaker and accuses it of tapping up Labour's top 100 donors for funds.

Instead of capitalising on Tory infighting, Miliband faces his own civil war. ·