The Confidence Trick

Labour have a firm poll lead, intellectual coherence and vision, unity and momentum. None of which can be said of the Tories. From fag packets to pay day loans, the Tories have lost their understanding of who they are.

That is possibly the most dangerous thing that can happen to a politician. The sense that you have a mission is what makes the difficult, tough, gritty, dirty, grinding and downright boring bits of politics worth it. If you don’t know what you’re doing it for, then you have to start questioning why you are doing it at all. Perhaps that is what hit Laura Sandys as she contemplated a long tough fight against both Labour and UKIP in Thanet South – a seat she was far from guaranteed to hold.

Ed Miliband knows what his mission is – and like Mark I believe it is important that he doesn’t “shrink the offer”. In fact all of the questions Mark poses are the right questions. But there is an overarching theme that underpins them (is that possible? Perhaps it encapsulates them?) and that is our sense of confidence.

Since the Party conference season, Labour  – led by Ed – have been projecting the self-confidence that the Tories simply don’t have. We have stopped our former tactic of intervention and run. The pressure coming from Labour has been constant and consistent. And the Tories have crumbled in the face of it. The narrative around both Ed and the Labour Party is shifting, and as we get closer to 2015, there is a real sense that it is Labour who hold the momentum, and Ed who has the ideas that could win the next election.

Now let’s not get carried away. If a week is a long time in politics (and in a social media age, that should probably be updates to a Tweet is a long time in politics) then the 18 months between now and the next election is an eternity. But that eternity will feel a lot better if we can maintain our confidence while continuing to chip away at that of our opponents.

Confidence is attractive. It’s one of the qualities in Ed I liked most when I opted to support his leadership bid. His confidence is calm and central to his being and his bearing. But it has taken a long time to translate this into a sense of purpose the whole party can get behind. But we are there now.

Labour needs to march forward towards the election with our head held high. We need to convince the electorate that our offer is right, and to do so we need to have confidence in it. As the disparate threads of the key values that make up what we are calling – for want of a better term – Milibandism – Responsible Capitalism, pesdistribution, community empowerment and power dispersal come together to create a coherent whole, the Party has an offer to be proud of and confident in. It is a vision we can present well to the nation.

As the staff gather today to talk about how this is going to work in detail, let’s hope that the one thing they all leave the room with is a deserved sense of confidence. They’ve earned it, Ed’s earned it and the country is ready for it.