Ed Miliband leadership crisis damaging election chances, party figures say And in a further development, the UK Independence Party said it would attempt to exploit the crisis by pouring resources into Mr Miliband's constituency in an attempt to unseat the Labour leader at the election. Miss Powell issued a direct challenge to rebellious Labour MPs to stop giving anonymous briefings about Mr Miliband. "Either show your colours and put names to quotes, or let's just move on and have a different conversation," she told BBC Radio 5 live's Pienaar's Politics. However, she then added: "When you have continuing anonymous stories being floated around that somehow Ed has lost the confidence of his MPs and so on, that obviously feeds a wider concern in the public about whether he's got the leadership qualities to lead his own party, let alone the country. So that doesn't help. She warned Labour plotters to be "careful what you wish for" and suggested they could cause the "worst of all worlds" by causing Labour to lose the election. Mr Mills, the millionaire businessman behind the JML household products range, backed Mr Miliband to stay in post. However, asked if the plotting against Mr Miliband has the potential to cost Labour the election, he said: "Electorates don't like divided parties. So yes, I think it does. United parties are always more appealing than ones that are divided. The Labour party has a much better chance of being elected if it unites around the leader that was chosen five or six years ago and puts its policies before the electorate rather than trying to change the leader at this stage. Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Lord Kinnock admitted that the recent headlines about Mr Miliband's leadership crisis are "serious" for the party. However, he accused MPs plotting against Mr Miliband of trying to commit "political suicide." "The claims that they're making, so far as you can identify them, are totally unjustifiable," he said. Damian McBride, Gordon Brown's former spin doctor, claimed Mr Miliband's camp would "fold" if a serious challenger put themselves forward. A series of polls have found that Mr Miliband's support amongst Labour voters has slumped in recent months. In an attempt to deflect attention from the questions about his leadership, Mr Miliband will on Monday use a speech to say that businesses must create more jobs and tackle low pay to stop Britain being dragged out of the European Union. The Labour leader will tell the Confederation of British Industry that the economic recovery is "joyless" for many and is fuelling euroscepticism.