Will Ed Miliband be the Doctor Who of politics? Should Labour win in 2015, then the prospect of a Parliament dominated by a rancorous referendum campaign may be the lesser evil. Mr Miliband may yet find himself leading Britain out of the EU, with all the economic and social disaster that would ensue. That scenario, however nightmarish, assumes a victory that is very far from assured. Labour, as one senior figure euphemistically puts it, is undergoing "a wobble." Lord Mandelson (somewhat unfairly, given Labour's past habit of parachuting the chosen into safe seats) accuses the unions of manipulating candidate selection; Lord Sainsbury calls Mr Miliband "average"; and it is even bruited, bizarrely, that Ed Balls might be replaced as shadow chancellor by the party's policy reviewer, Jon Cruddas. Mr Cruddas, who told me recently that he is "barely numerate," is likely to be as startled as anyone by this rumour. More plausibly, he is said by one insider to feel "frustration" over whether his bold plans to reshape the state will ever get past the shadow cabinet. Mild as such symptoms of anxiety may seem when compared with Tory apocalypse, Labour also faces turbulence. Last Saturday, its leader gave a speech to the Progress think tank. The woman sitting next to me, who had travelled from Liverpool, had never previously heard Mr Miliband speak. When I asked her later what she thought, she said that he was good at taking audience questions but that the speech itself was disappointing. Although Mr Miliband is, in many ways, increasingly accomplished and persuasive, he cannot yet galvanise the faithful. For all his skill at fostering unity and developing big ideas, Miliband's Britain remains a jumble of pieces rather than an assembled jigsaw. While the Opposition leader can afford to play it long on Europe, a short-fuse crisis burns. Anyone doubting that welfare could lose the election for Labour should read the Joseph Rowntree study showing that scepticism about benefits is rising faster among Labour than Tory voters. Nearly half of the former favour cuts, compared with 16 per cent in 1987. George Osborne has set his trap. As Nick Pearce of the Institute for Public Policy Research has written, the Chancellor plans to make explicit provision for cutting working-age welfare in the June spending round. Unless the Opposition can set a clear new direction for the welfare state, it will be forced to dance to Mr Osborne's tune. Labour, now working furiously behind the scenes, has less than a month to set out its agenda. On welfare, and much else, the party is not short of plans. Nor are many of them novel. John Denham's work on localism is well established, as is the think tank Compass's promotion of the living wage, Blue Labour's bid to reclaim Englishness, and a host more. What Miliband lacks is the time to knit these strands together. As the pollster Peter Kellner points out, a one-term opposition party has not won an overall majority in 80 years. Those tempted to bemoan sclerotic advances tend to forget that Mr Miliband is attempting to telescope time. As he admitted on Saturday, he is aiming to "defy the historical odds." Far more crucial than the EU of tomorrow - a subject that preoccupies relatively few voters - is today's welfare cost and what precisely he plans to do about it. That answer, now urgently required, will determine Labour's future just as Europe will write the next Tory chapter. Where Tony Blair felt the touch of the past upon his shoulder, Mr Miliband risks feeling the hand of history closing round his throat. The coming week will show whether Miliband the would-be time traveller can become the Doctor Who of politics. If not, then future students of history may bestow on him a briefer and less flattering label: "Who?"