If Miliband wants to change the political consensus, we need to focus on a positive offer

We’ve had a wobbly old week. The polling is tough and reactions to our PEB attacking Nick Clegg – not least my own – have not been wholly positive.

I don’t think Labour wins by attacking the Tories and Lib Dems. Of course we must expose their failings. Of course we must expose their hypocrisy. Of course we must show the damage they are doing to the people we care about. But we must do so much more than this. Ironically, Labour’s second attack ad on the Lib Dems did this really well, but was lost in the shadow of it’s more exposed and less clever predecessor.

And of course we need to defend the institutions we – and the British public – from the damage being done to them by this government. Our NHS PEB goes a long way to doing this and does it well.

But more than anything, we need to be out there making a positive case for Labour at every level of government. Locally, nationally and Supranationally. We need to expend several times more effort on giving people something to vote for.

The irony is, Labour has a good offer to make. At our best, we aren’t trying to tussle over who can make the best small offer, but are offering a dynamic new approach to our economy from which all our more “retail” policies stem. Our offer on energy bills (and more importantly our promise to fix the broken energy market), our offer on rents (and more importantly the offer to fix the broken housing market) our offer on zero hour contracts and wages (and more importantly the offer to fix the broken employment market) all speak to a Labour who is not afraid to intervene on the side of the many Britons who are fed up with being on the sharp end of unreformed and rampant capitalism. They tell a good combined story about what a state that isn’t afraid of early intervention will do for those who need it.

But at the moment we’re trying to sell our policies piecemeal. We must accept that the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts. We need to do the vision thing. We should not be afraid of our own radicalism, polls show time and again that voters aren’t. There is a coherent philosophy to Ed’s leadership and it’s a sight more ambitious than just attempting to heave ourselves over the line and govern in timidity.

Voters are becoming optimistic that the economy is recovering, but many are extremely doubtful that they will personally benefit from it doing so. The governing parties are particularly complacent about this aspect of public opinion, expecting to be rewarded for a recovery for the rich in their continuously unrewarded faith that it will trickle down to the rest.

There is space here for a different kind of economy, but it must be one Labour make the case for wholeheartedly. It must be one we have the confidence to believe in and the strength to pursue in the teeth of fierce opposition from vested interests.

Ed Miliband has said that just as Thatcher did in 1979 he wants to change the political consensus about what is possible (this time for the better). Labour can do that. Ed can do that. But only if we make that case. All the brush strokes are there. We just have to stop holding back from showing, selling and championing the bigger picture.