Has Ed Miliband’s luck finally run out?

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[/audioplayer]Ask anyone in Westminster about the obstacles to a Tory victory in next year’s election and you’ll hear a well-rehearsed answer. The constituency boundaries are so ancient that Labour can win on a far lower share of vote; Ukip is eating into the Tories’ base while the coalition has united the left behind Labour; being beaten by Ukip in the European elections will send Tory MPs into a regicidal frenzy. By contrast, Labour appears to be holding itself together; its problems are hidden well below the waterline.

But that’s changing. The Budget has brought the political tide out, revealing some of the rocks on which Ed Miliband’s hopes of office could be dashed.

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The first of these is the increasingly tense debate inside the Labour party about the nature of the party’s manifesto. In May 2012, Miliband took control of Labour’s policy review away from the former management consultant Liam Byrne and gave it to Jon Cruddas, a former academic. This, one of his boldest moves, guaranteed that the policy review would offer more than just technocratic solutions.

Cruddas promptly set about thinking how to reinvent the relationship between the state, society and the individual for the 21st century. But there are those in the Labour party who worry that he is thinking too big. They fear that the policies he will propose will be too radical, that they will provide targets for the Tories and the press to attack. They would like his review to be kicked into the long grass as soon as it lands.

This explains why 19 influential Labour thinkers sent a letter to the Guardian warning that the party must not try and play it safe at the next election.