The great bubble of Ukip votes clouds everything. In the miasma of hysteria, let's not get carried away by Nigel Farage's crow that "the establishment has been shocked and stunned". Whose establishment? The right has been split apart and the Conservative party is at war: David Davis declares class war on the Etonians while Cameron slides right to appease the unappeasable. A dangerous dogs bill in the Queen's speech looks like a symbol for controlling his own pit bulls. Meanwhile, an ever wider prairie is vacated for Labour to occupy.
Labour's success was downplayed. If last week had been a general election, the party would have won a majority of 12. Bookies bank on a Labour victory. Labour's hard graft in target seats paid off handsomely. Blair-era carpers tweet sourly all day long that if Labour can't win in southern Tory-held swing seats, it can never be One Nation. But look at the geography of the results, and a congratulatory slug of Southern Comfort is in order. Strong gains came in Amber Valley, Cambridge, Crawley, Cannock, Dover, Hastings, Ipswich, Stevenage and other targets, winning directly from Tories. Old-fashioned footwork matters. Ask why the Lib Dems will probably hold many seats, and they'll say current anti-politics jaundice is only dispelled by voter face-time locally with their MP or candidate and platoons of activists.
But yes, Labour has a way to go. To win by a whisker because a bigger rightwing vote was split and crushed by first-past-the-post would make governing near impossible. Labour has to secure intellectual and emotional hegemony, planting its flag unequivocally for jobs, growth and fairer shares. Too many Labour spokespeople are frozen into cautious timidity, afraid to talk like ordinary people expressing what they feel and believe with enough fervour. Ed Balls does a boisterous ya-boo but without the language of mission and purpose. Many sound like civil servants reading from a brief, afraid to put a foot wrong. Most lack neither passion nor indignation, but something frightens them from using language with colour, metaphor and conviction.
True, every interview is a potential death trap, as Ed Miliband found. They need rock-solid answers on the economy – not a budget, not figures yet – but the Eds need to frame the rules they will abide by, describing now the shape of an iron fiscal envelope on current spending. Labour is still blamed for the global collapse, but boldness not caution is the only escape. Never be caught again prevaricating on the B-word: don't be afraid to say they will borrow to invest. Don't duck it; boast about it: only self-confidence will convince. Gather those economists not of the left, the Martin Wolf and Samuel Brittan school who call for stimulus and borrowing. Argue the case for it with homely analogies. Did any new business get off the ground without borrowing to invest? Did any family acquire property without borrowing for a mortgage, paid back over years? No one regards mortgage debt of three times their income as imprudent if there is a plan to repay. But Osborne's debt soars, wasted on unemployment and housing benefit for landlords. Labour's costed promise of jobs for the unemployed, alongside house-building is the only alternative to a shrinking, dwindling state.
The state as growth-stimulator is a strong theme as the Royal Mail is sold off against the public's wishes, leaving the taxpayer to foot the pension bill. Don't let it be asset stripped. Don't let it go the way of the energy firms, with uncontrolled higher prices. Selling off RBS for less than purchase price cheats the taxpayer, when a state-run bank should be lending for investment. Why rush to sell off the state-owned East Coast line when it makes a profit? Let other rail contracts fall back to the taxpayer to keep prices down. Look at how the state-run NHS fosters our thriving pharmaceutical industry. Look how state-backed arts, broadcasting and design foster industries worth multiples of its grants. Be positive about what government can do.
But don't promise more than a long hard road ahead: people won't suddenly see wages rise or cuts restored. The promise is a country self-confidently investing in itself, not divesting itself of everything. Contrast that with the dismal offerings in the Queen's speech and all the state-shrinking and scapegoating that grips the Tory-Ukip realm. Go for the jugular of this miserablist, mean-spirited government.
The only way Labour can shrug off the wicked issues – immigration, welfare and Europe – is with frank common sense. Without patronising Ukip voters, appeal to what people know: foreigners, benefit claimants and Europe are not to blame for the economic plight we're in – and everyone knows it really. Of course we must control our borders and make sure only those entitled get benefits – but the bedroom tax and cuts for the severely disabled are plain wrong. Leaving the EU? That only multiplies our problems. Don't be deceived by diversions and crude excuses for the drastic fall in living standards people feel. The banks caused this, the well-off are almost untouched, while hardship falls on the great majority of basic-rate taxpayers, Labour's people.
Voters may like rum characters who pretend not to be politicians, but laugh out loud at the ludicrous idea that those opportunists, Farage and Boris, are anti-establishment. What people look for is authenticity. They trust those who sound as if they mean what they say – and have the competence to deliver it. As Roy Hattersley wrote so well on Monday, "listening to the people" is no answer; leadership gains respect. The challenge is less the dark issues themselves but how robustly Labour dares confront them. Dither and duck and all is lost.