Miliband has set himself and Jon Cruddas a huge task – and has only 11 months to complete it

Yesterday Ed Miliband was in Thurrock to deliver a speech that many believe would lurch to the right on immigration. Thankfully, Miliband did nothing of the sort. At a time when authenticity is so paramount, and when the public distrust politicians so much, a lurch would’ve seemed calculated and false.

Instead, Miliband began to walk in the right direction – towards the source of Labour’s problem and the nation’s problem. And it was a good first step – because it acknowledged not only the problem, but it’s terrifying scale.

There are communities completely cast adrift, where don’t vote beats UKIP hands down, and where UKIP beat Labour last week. Places like Thurrock. But also places like Rotherham. And places like Miliband’s Doncaster too (at least in the European elections). Miliband spoke about the loss of pits and shipyards, of jobs that weren’t just about money to stay afloat, but which held communities together. They’re what we’ve lost. Instead we build a TGI Fridays and a chicken-coop call-centre where an old factory sat and call it progress.

It isn’t.

And yet what the Labour leader was saying yesterday was not new exactly, but rather building on things he’s said before. He knows that people don’t feel politics is for them. That politicians are from another planet. That the distance between North London and Doncaster North is measured not just in terms of distance, but also in terms of life chances, power, and voice. Ed Miliband knows all of this. He feels it deeply. It goes to the heart of why he ran for leader, why he wanted to change the party and why he put so much faith in Arnie Graf (remember him?). I’ve seen him speak to people on station platforms, in cafes and on high streets across the country about it. People don’t feel like politics is for them. Miliband says he wants to put that right.

And I believe him.

But he faces three distinct problems. A) A man who has spent most of his life intertwined with Westminster politics is a problematic messenger for the problems of such politics. B) No-one believes politicians these days – especially if they’re making promises about making your life better. And C) He’s yet to come up with the answers that will convince people otherwise.

Our problems aren’t about a lack of policies anymore. Action on energy, housing, the minimum wage and social care potentially adds up to a tidy and achieve able policy offer. What’s needed now isn’t policy – it’s “the vision thing”. What will Britain look like under a Labour government? What does our Better Britain look like? What is our light at the end of the tunnel? “Things are bad in cost of living crisis Britain, we’ll make things slightly better” won’t cut it.

We need to give the British people something to believe in. Something to get behind. Something to be enthusiastic about.

During Miliband’s speech yesterday he nodded at Jon Cruddas – the MP for neighbouring Dagenham – and said that he “would answer the difficult questions”. Except it wasn’t a joke. What Miliband has done is accept that there are structural problems in our society that leave many people and communities weak, lacking power and control over their own lives, disillusioned with what they see as a bunch of greedy liars in Westminster and distrustful of any politician who claims they will act otherwise and do things better.

Yesterday Ed Miliband acknowledged all that, and alluded to Cruddas’s slow-burner policy review as the answer to those questions. Questions that have gestated over decades in Labour heartlands and marginals alike (distrust does not conform to parliamentary boundaries). In only a few weeks Labour’s National Policy Forum meets to put the meat on the brittle bones of Labour’s governing agenda. To flesh out the story of a better Britain.

That’s the target Miliband set for himself, Cruddas and Labour yesterday. He needs to meet it. There’s thirty years or more of discontent to overturn, and only 11 months to do it.

Chop chop.