IF the resignation of one aide is a misfortune and two looks like carelessness, then how do we describe a third walking out?

I pose the question because three is the number of North-East MPs who have quit as unpaid parliamentary aides after policy clashes with Ed Miliband.

Westminster is gripped by the apparent disintegration of the Conservatives over Europe, gay marriage and an incendiary suggestion that party members are “swivel-eyed loons”.

But, behind the scenes, the Labour leader faces his own problems, and protests, as he draws up policies for a difficult general election in two years’ time.

And, from both left and right, no region boasts MPs – and former MPs – more determined to make their voices heard than the North-East. The ex-MP is, of course, Tony Blair. The departed Prime Minister warned against Labour retreating into its “comfort zone” of opposing all cuts and backing higher spending.

Last week, John Burton, his long-time Sedgefield agent, told me Mr Blair “feels he could be doing more in politics” and would be offering further advice. I bet Ed can’t wait.

However, less well noticed is the creeping discontent that the Labour leader, regardless of his “Red Ed” tag, is failing to stand up for his party’s true values. The first parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to quit was Grahame Morris, the Easington MP, who attacked Labour’s support for harsh public sector pay curbs.

The Left-Winger had already angered the party leadership by refusing to cross a Westminster picket line, when up to two million workers went on strike.

Ian Lavery, the Wansbeck MP, walked out after tabling amendments in the Commons to block looming increases in the retirement age – a move supported by Labour.

Then, in March, Gateshead’s Ian Mearns lost his PPS post after voting against socalled “workfare” legislation, requiring compulsory unpaid work experience.

Last week, Mr Morris was among 11 Labour MPs who defied Mr Miliband by voting with Tory rebels for an immediate Bill to guarantee a referendum on EU membership.

When I put it to the Easington MP that he must have been given an earful for that act of defiance, he laughed: “I’m used to being hauled over the coals.”

All the heat is on Mr Cameron, as he struggles to hold back the rampant tide of Europhobia in his party and faces the wrath of supporters of traditional marriage.

It really is a matter of time before cartoonists start capturing the Prime Minister with his shirt tucked into his underpants, John Major-style – if they haven’t already.

But the unhappiness of some North-East MPs underlines the difficulty of satisfying the demands of both surviving Blairites and Labour’s heartlands.’.

POLITICAL historians were quick to spot the irony when James Wharton, the Stockton South MP, announced he was taking forward a Bill to give voters say on Europe.

After all, one of Mr Wharton’s predecessors was none other than future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, the man who first attempted to take Britain into the Common Market. Furthermore, long after losing the seat, Supermac returned to Stockton, in April 1962, to make a landmark speech, arguing that our country’s destiny lay in Europe. I wonder if he is turning in his grave right now?