The drubbing in the polls received by Ed Miliband will not detract from the campaign on the doorstep, claims Labour hopeful Guy Nicholson.

Mr Nicholson, prospective parliamentary candidate for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, also says that Miliband’s critics should tell their leader what they think of him directly rather than conduct a whispering campaign.

His comments come after a YouGov Poll revealed that only a third of Labour voters thought that Miliband was fit to be Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, an undisclosed senior figure in the party told a national newspaper that 20 Labour frontbenchers want to see a change in leadership ahead of the general election.

Mr Nicholson said: “Ed Miliband has my full backing and if any rebels in the parliamentary Labour Party have concerns they should be saying them to Ed’s face.

“Ed has a strong set of ideas and policies that we hope to be delivering after the election in May 2015.”

Admitting that reactions to Mr Miliband’s leadership from the people he met on the campaign trail were “mixed”, Mr Nicholson stressed that the overriding concerns expressed were for jobs, wages and the NHS.

He said: “These day-to-day issues which have been left to decline over the last four years [by the coalition government] are the sort of things that fire up conversations on the doorstep.”

Mr Nicholson said polls could always go up or down and declined to be drawn into the issue of whether Mr Miliband’s popularity would make a difference at election time.

He said: “It is for others to reflect on whether they like Ed, but these considerations could be shallow or narrow. For me it’s about passion, ideas, advocacy, diplomacy and the policies of government that Ed offers which really matter.”

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Sittingbourne and Sheppey at next year’s parliamentary elections has been announced.

Keith Nevols has been selected and will contest the race to represent the constituency next May. The 47-year-old is chairman of the Swale Liberal Democrats and is a local government worker living in Milton Regis.

He was voted to lead the party’s bid at a members’ meeting at Phoenix House in Central Avenue, Sittingbourne.

In April, Mr Nevols admitted his party was leaving it late to put a name forward for the House of Commons race. He was also the candidate for the constituency in the 2010 election when he won 7,943 votes.

Mr Nevols will compete against Conservative Gordon Henderson, Labour’s Guy Nicholson and Richard Palmer from Ukip.