What a weekend for Ed Miliband. The Labour leader has been the target of a media frenzy over his leadership, fed by unscrupulous members of his own party.

MPs briefing against their leader or regurgitating poisonous drivel in the guise of “advice” to hostile newspapers are apparently motivated by sincere concern that the party is unable to establish a clear lead over the Conservatives in the polls.

While Labour still does beat the Tories in most surveys of public opinion, it is true that the marginal lead it possesses is nothing to boast about.

The Conservatives have, with the connivance of the Liberal Democrats, opened our NHS to privateers, sold off our Royal Mail, savaged the welfare state, launched a vicious and spite-fuelled campaign against disabled people and presided over an unprecedented rise in poverty that sees a million people queuing for food handouts.

On top of that, the right is in disarray, with David Cameron watching as his MPs defect to the even more rabidly Thatcherite outfit that is Ukip.

Labour should certainly be doing better against a nasty party that is as divided as it is unpopular.

But there are reasons to question whether those sniping at Mr Miliband have the party’s best interests at heart.

The torrent of media coverage designed to make the Labour leader look weak and incompetent was completely predictable.

The likes of the Mail and the Telegraph, mouthpieces for the 1 per cent, are delighted with the colossal transfer of wealth from working people to the rich that the Tories are implementing, and will stop at nothing to prevent a Labour victory next May.

One of Lenin’s maxims in politics was: “Who? Whom?” Who benefits from this, and who will be harmed by it?

It is hard to see Labour’s general election chances being helped by the decapitation of the party six months away from a general election.

And who is behind the attacks?

Mr Miliband has surged in the polls whenever he has challenged Establishment interests — attacking Rupert Murdoch’s vast and unaccountable media power or pledging a freeze on energy prices.

All polls suggest a more coherent leftward shift — pledges to renationalise the railways and energy companies, for instance — would win the support of millions of voters.

But these are not the policies advocated by Mr Miliband’s critics.

Anonymous Jewish donors brief that they’ll cut their funding because of the Labour leader’s principled support for recognising the state of Palestine, an overwhelmingly popular position.

A return to appeasing the apartheid state of Israel is apparently their price for supporting the party.

Alistair Darling moans about a mansion tax on houses worth more than £2 million, as if Labour’s main electoral problem is a failure to appeal to the rich.

Simon Danczuk’s wish-list in the Mail on Sunday — get tough on immigration, reform welfare to get people back to work, build “an NHS that works for everyone” — was exactly the sort of vacuous new-Labour speak that confuses people about what Labour stands for.

More than one anonymous briefer has hinted that Labour should forfeit this election because of the scale of the problems facing the country and sit it out till next time.

It is this that really motivates the plotters — the fear that the anger of millions of working people will force their party in government to enact progressive policies and forgo their cosy relationship with the Establishment.

Nothing could better display the total indifference of the Blairites to the suffering being imposed on workers by the Tory-led coalition.

Ed Miliband should see now that his attempts to placate the right of his party are doomed. A bold challenge to the discredited austerity bandwagon is the only thing that will carry him to Downing Street.