Ed Miliband: How Labour rebels turned on their leader He is less popular than Nick Clegg and he will cost us votes at the General Election. We are hearing it on the doorstep. People are saying 'you are doing an all-right job but we don't like your leader'. He is costing me votes. In the face of stringent criticism, Mr Miliband was forced to deny that he was the subject of a coup. "This is nonsense," he said. I don't accept that this matter arises. I believe that what the party wants to focus is on the country. There are huge issues that our country faces. We are determined to be a one term opposition. Asked whether he faces a leadership challenge," Mr Miliband said. That's not the way I see it. This country faces huge issues. We owe that responsibility to the country. he rebellion facing Mr Miliband, however, is very real. For four years, Labour's slim lead over the Conservatives in the polls has kept a lid on the party's discontent. However, his performance at the Labour Party conference in September, when he "forgot" to mention the deficit in his keynote speech, has brought back-bench unrest into the open. He immediately found himself subject to comparisons with Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, who was talked up as a leadership challenger after an assured address to delegates. Since the conference, criticism from within the Labour party has intensified as party grandees and London MPs turned on him over his plans for a "mansion tax." His authority has been further undermined by a series of gaffes, including the occasion when he was photographed struggling to eat a bacon sandwich. The tipping point, however, came at the weekend, when his approval ratings slumped to all right as it emerged he is now even less popular than Nick Clegg. A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times found that just 18 per cent of voters thought Ed Miliband was doing a good job, one point less than Mr Clegg. On Wednesday the New Statesman, the bible of the left which once supported Ed Miliband's leadership bid, turned on the Labour leader, accusing him of failing to understand middle class voters and lacking optimism. The mood in the party is bleak. One member of the shadow cabinet said: "The only thing that was holding it all together was the poll lead. When that goes there's nothing to bind it all together. Another added: "We're in a bizarre, possibly unique situation. The PLP have now lost confidence in the Labour party leader. But they feel there's nothing they can do about it. Earlier this week Simon Danczuk, the labour MP for Rochdale, is understood to have told David Watts, the head of the Parliamentary Labour Party, that it is time for Mr Miliband to go. Three other MPs are said to have done the same. Ian Austin, the Labour MP for Dudley North, is also said to have told friends that it is time for Mr Miliband to go. One Labour MP said that Mr Miliband's leadership crisis is the "talk of the tea room" and that there are "dozens" of labour MPs preparing to formally request his resignation. He pointed out that senior Labour figures have been notably reticent in defending him. Yesterday Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, and Paul Kenny, the Labour leader, were the only leading figures of the left to come out and publicly support Mr Miliband. In an attempt to bolster his position Ed Miliband has appointed Lucy Powell as the vice-chairman of the general election campaign as part of a mini reshuffle. She previously ran his successful leadership campaign. However Damian McBride, Gordon Brown's former spin doctor, said she will be "whistling in the wind" if she thinks she can make him more palatable on the doorstep. He said: "They have almost got no choice because they have either got to say he's not going to work and his ratings are going to stay where they are or they have got to say if more people got to know the real Ed, then somehow we'd all be turned around. But I think they may be whistling in the wind. Mr Miliband's saving grace, however, may be the Labour Party rule book, which was deliberately written to protect the leader of the party from challenge. That, and the lack of a challenger. One frontbencher said: "There is no realistic alternative except Alan [Johnson the former Health Secretary], and all the signs are that he doesn't want to do it."