Miliband must define himself – before the Tories do it for him

After the tribulations of last year’s conference, few in Ed Miliband’s camp would have dared hope that he would turn up this year as the only major party leader totally secure in his position. For the first time, his main challenge will not be to cut through the chatter about whether he is up to the job or not. As one aide puts it, ‘It’ll feel like his first conference.’ It is certainly his best chance yet to give the country a sense of what he would do as prime minister.

I understand that Miliband has two main aims for the next week. The first is to give people a sense of who he is. He needs to escape from the shadows of his brother and father to craft his own persona. One friend says that Miliband will ‘want to tell a story about his political character’.

The second aim is to give voters a sense of what the big initial reforms of a Miliband government would be. Free of leadership speculation, with his party ten points ahead in the polls and the coalition in choppy waters, Miliband will be being evaluated as a potential prime minister for the first time.

Miliband won’t provide huge amounts of policy detail in Manchester. But I understand that he’ll sketch out plans for energy market reform, a new approach to immigration and how he would apply the contributory principle more to welfare.

With the benefit of hindsight, Miliband’s conference speech last year looks a lot better. The abstract talk of the difference between ‘predatory’ and ‘producer’ capitalism that was so mocked at the time positioned him well for the financial scandals of the 12 months that followed.