There now follows a party political outburst

At a “meet the people” event in a few days’ time Ed Miliband will, quite spontaneously, say this:

“Thank you for that question, Mike. Why aren’t we doing better, you ask. Well, I would like us to be doing better, to be further ahead in the polls. But, you know, if I’d said to you, a few days after that Downing St press conference with Clegg and Cameron, that with weeks to go to the next general election we would be in with a very good chance of winning, you wouldn’t have believed me. We have come a long way since then, and we meet here today on the brink of a return to government after only one term in opposition. And that’s no mean feat.

“What is our message? It’s that Britain can do better. Better than this. The Tories tell us they have a “long term economic plan”. Perhaps you’ve heard them say something about that, occasionally. But what is this plan? For flat wages, zero hours contracts, part-time instead of full-time work, agency work, insecurity? Some plan.

“And when they say ‘long term’, how much longer, exactly, are people supposed to wait until they feel better off? One minute they say they have masterminded a miraculous economic recovery, but the next they tell us that tens of billions of pounds worth of further cuts are needed, immediately. Don’t worry – it’s all part of the long term plan. And even if YOU have to wait, in the long term, for the merest possibility of doing better, at least some of their friends are enjoying a tax cut in the short term, now – their friends, who have seen the top rate of income tax cut. You know, we really cannot afford, you cannot afford, this country cannot afford another five years of Cameron and Osborne in Downing Street.

“Some people are claiming that we are “anti business”. It’s nonsense. We need a flourishing private sector offering good jobs, training, and decent careers. We need to see wages rising, and that means all of us being more productive, raising our skills levels and exporting more. Anti business? We are the one party that is serious about raising standards in British business, making businesses more successful.

“We want a healthy partnership with business. We want to support them. And we will listen to fair and constructive criticism of our plans, and engage with it. What we won’t do is forget who our real bosses are: the people of this country. It is they who are telling us that we can do better, that Britain needs to do better. We want what they want: an economy that works for working people, not some far-off, supposed “plan” that never delivers.

“The Tories keep telling us that better times are just on the horizon. But every time you take a step closer to the horizon it moves further away again. We need action here, now: on raising the minimum wage, on spreading the living wage, and getting employee representatives a seat on the boards of our biggest companies, to make sure that those top executive salaries really are being earned.

“One last thing, Mike, that is very important. I lead a united party. We are clear: strong on our membership of the European Union, which is the most pro-business policy of all. Strong on training, apprenticeships and skills. Strong on devolving power from Westminster. Strong on building the infrastructure we need. Strong on saving the NHS.

“Now, people tell me there have been some rumblings in recent days, from former ministers, expressing a bit of uncertainty about Labour’s plans for a better future. I hope that uncertainty, if it existed, has gone. And I urge everyone who says they are Labour to spend between now and May 7 working for a Labour victory. If some feel unable to do that, well… a few weeks of silence from them would be welcome. The rest of us actually do want Labour to win, and that is what we are working for.

“Mike, thank you for that question. I’m glad I got all that off my chest…”