It's been a tough couple of days for the Labour leader, which he has played poorly. His pose with the Sun's special World Cup edition, which the newspaper tweeted yesterday, has resulted in much outrage from party activists, culminating in a Liverpool Labour councillor Martin Cummins resigning this afternoon. The resignation comes in spite of Miliband apologising for the photo earlier today – another ill-judged move.

As reported in the Liverpool Echo, Cummins wrote in his resignation letter that, "seeing Ed promoting the Sun has rocked me to my core", and called for the Labour party to "stop compromising" its morals.

We are the the party of truth, justice and equality and we must stop compromising on our moral foundation just to win votes. It is therefore with sadness and sincere regret that I am resigning from the Labour Party. I pray that my brothers and sisters within our Labour family will understand my decision.

The tabloid remains extremely unpopular in Merseyside, due to its erroneous coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. Cummins seems to protest more against the paper and the Labour leader's advisers than Miliband himself:

This paper’s degradation of women on page three should be enough to consign it to history, but the infamy of The Sun’s lies and deceit regarding our loved ones who lost their lives at Hillsborough should be enough for millions across our country to shred this deeply offensive rag when it oozes through their letter boxes, stains their hallways and pollutes their lives. I believe Ed has listened to unwise counsel in associating himself, and our party, with this degrading publication. I appreciate how difficult it must have been to take the decision but I believe the Sun’s under-handed publicity stunt, which is nothing to do with support for our national team, will backfire. I believe that God works in mysterious ways and seeing Ed promoting The Sun has rocked me to my core.

The photo op, intended to support the English football team, also backfired somewhat because of Miliband's repeated condemnation of the Murdoch media empire during his leadership.