Ed Miliband urged to confront Unite over general election candidates Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, above, may not enough national executive votes to defeat Unite. Ed Miliband is being pressed by shadow cabinet colleagues to show "bold leadership" in confronting Unite, Labour's biggest affiliate, over its alleged manipulation of parliamentary selection at an important party meeting next week. The meeting is due to discuss whether trade unions should continue to be allowed to pay the first year of party subscription fees of their members but it sets the stage for a wider potential confrontation between Miliband and Unite. Some colleagues are urging him to show his political toughness by telling Unite its behaviour, notably in the Falkirk selection, has been unacceptable. But there is a danger that Miliband simply does not have the votes on the national executive to defeat Unite. In the only previous close vote on the national executive - over the appointment of a party general secretary - Miliband lost. Unite has admitted in leaked documents that it is running a covert campaign to ensure its candidates are selected to represent Labour in the general election. As David Cameron seized on a Labour parliamentary selection row in Falkirk to say that the Unite union had taken control of the Labour party, a leaked copy of a report by its political director said that it was supporting 41 candidates in parliamentary seats across Britain. Steve Hart, the union's political director, wrote in his June political report to Unite's executive council on 11 May: "In the narrow sense our political department work is dominated currently by candidate selection matters. Our small department - 3.5 people - is working extremely hard on assisting in a large and growing number of selections. The report later compared the union's work to a swan. Hart wrote: "As some will have noticed, the work of the political department and the union regionally in candidate selections is a little bit like a swan - all that can be seen is indication of support here or there, while below the water activity is furious! Indeed I would point out that this is a very big task for our small department! The document shows Unite has so far won eight selections nationally and has a candidate shortlisted in 11 other constituency parties. Unite insists it is merely trying to ensure working class candidates are selected that represent unions' views. The documents were leaked after Cameron and Miliband were involved in some of their bitterest parliamentary exchanges as the prime minister sought to exploit the Falkirk selection row. The Labour leadership took control of the selection of a parliamentary candidate in Falkirk after an internal investigation examined claims that Unite had packed the constituency with as many as 100 supporters, some of whom were unaware that they had been recruited to the party. The prime minister taunted Miliband after the former home secretary David Blunkett warned of the dangers of returning to the "divisions and diversions" of the past, saying Labour would end up in the "graveyard" if it steered clear of radical ideas that focus on the future. Cameron said: "We have a situation in this country where we have got one of our political parties, where it has become apparent votes are being bought, people are being signed up without consent. Murphy, who was criticised by McCluskey in a recent New Statesman interview, told the BBC: "While trade unions are an important part of a society and our politics, there seems to be one trade union in particular that has well and truly overstepped the mark. The document seen by the Guardian shows that before the constituency boundary changes were dropped, Unite was also working to back candidates that might have led to the removal of Luciana Berger, MP for Liverpool Wavertree, and the shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, in Renfrewshire. Minutes of the September 2012 Unite executive also state: "The union will be assisted in the candidate selection process by a committee set up in the Leader's office." The June Unite executive minutes complain the party has been the victim of sustained press abuse over its approach the Falkirk selection. The minutes state: "While we know this has emanated from the right of the party, it is unfortunate in the extreme that the party has too often responded to the right rather than robustly holding the fair and democratic line." Grant Shapps, the Conservative chairman, said of the leaked document: "By letting Unite push him around, Ed Miliband shows that he can't take the tough decisions that our country needs ... The only person he will stand up for is Len McCluskey. And it's hardworking people who would pay the price. The document was leaked after Miliband's notes for prime minister's questions were published by the Guido Fawkes website. His parliamentary aide Jonathan Reynolds had left them in a toilet after rushing out of the chamber. The notes showed that the leadership is nervous about the Labour deputy chairman Tom Watson, whose parliamentary aide Karie Murphy is named as the preferred Unite candidate in Falkirk in the leaked document. There were two prepared quotes on Watson. Under Sons of Brown, the document said: "I'd far rather have Tom Watson working for me, who led the campaign on the phone hacking scandal, than have brought Andy Coulson into the heart of Downing Street." McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, accused the prime minister of having demeaned his office as he responded to Jim Murphy by saying that Miliband runs the Labour party. He said: "David Cameron ... dismissed questions on food banks in order to point score and cheapened the office of prime minister by signalling loudly and clearly that he does not care about people's real worries."