Why hasn’t Labour sacked Ed Miliband?

If a bus driver were heading towards the edge of a cliff, the passengers would try to seize control of the wheel in all cases except one. Members of the Parliamentary Labour Party would sit back in their seats, put on their most confident smiles, and tell each other they were going full-speed ahead in the right direction.

Ed Miliband is leading the Labour Party to disaster. His latest approval ratings are almost as bad as Nick Clegg’s  – which is not company any of us want to keep. Voters see him as an insipid waffler, too weak to stand up to foreign rulers or the trade unions.

Yet barring a fatal accident under the wheels of another runaway bus, or a religious revelation that pushes him into monastic retreat, Labour will allow Ed Miliband to lead it into the next election; just as it allowed the equally unpopular Gordon Brown to lead it to defeat in 2010; just as the Liberal Democrats will allow Nick Clegg to continue to lead them, however close to zero their opinion poll ratings fall.