The Defenders of England

John Cruddas' 'good society' appears to be one in which Labour embrace English cultural nationalism.

Can Ed Miliband find an antidote to the politics of fear and loathing?

Mr Cruddas arrived with a proposal.

Mr Miliband, he suggested, should accompany him on a trip to Billingsgate Fish Market, to hear the porters' view of the threat posed by the encroachment of the money men of neighbouring Canary Wharf.

Neither Tony Blair's God-based fervour nor Gordon Brown's cult of Britishness ever touched the nation's heart.

Mr Cruddas has offered a starter pack. He has, he tells me, invited Mr Miliband to visit the port of Dover to see how England's heritage may be sold off to the highest bidder. After that, he suggests, they could go to the threatened Forest of Dean and Sherwood Forest. The idea of an English journey reminiscent of J B Priestley's odyssey would be to "rediscover an England which is not North London" and develop a "politics of virtue" to replace the hollowed-out economic view.

Whether Cruddas can entice the champagne socialists out of their rarefied North London enclaves is another matter.