If you're one of the few getting a big tax cut, it's fair to say: come clean The Labour leader is not in the 50p band. And his wife? Justine is not a beneficiary, but this isn't about partners and spouses. It's about George Osborne and David Cameron, who should now come clean. Mr Miliband does not, however, argue for US-style transparency under which both government and shadow ministers would publish their tax returns. You don't want every dot and comma pored over. You should just say if you are a beneficiary and by how much. I'm willing to answer it, and I'm not the guy who introduced the tax cut. On the question of whether Labour would bring back the 50p rate, Mr Miliband is less transparent. Although Ed Balls and other senior figures have said the top band would be reinstated if Labour were drawing up a Budget tomorrow, Mr Miliband offers no long-term assurance. Asked if he can guarantee that the measure will be in the election manifesto, he says: "I will look forward to discussing our election plans with you at the election. We will be voting against the 50p cut now and doing everything we can to try and stop it. When it comes to the next election, we will set out our policy then. But he once seemed clear that the 50p rate should be permanent. Since I became leader, we have said we would leave it in place for this Parliament. I'm not prefiguring either way what our position would be. On a broader front, he accuses Mr Cameron of bringing back a failed model of cutting taxes at the top, at the expense of the squeezed middle. Mr Cameron, he says, is being "pushed around"; first by Mr Miliband, whose conference speech - in his own assessment - prompted the Tory leader's attack on "crony capitalism." Now he accuses him of being in thrall to "lobbyists and vested interests" and of "chronic and out-of-control levels of promise breaking." Mr Osborne comes in for a harsher assessment. Asked if the Chancellor felt emboldened to make his tax cut because Labour's economic credibility is in tatters, he hints that Mr Osborne was motivated, in part, by personal ambition. It's his ideology. To the extent that it's about politics, it's more about his future - showing the Tories what he really believes in. That does not explain Labour's own failure to regain trust on the economy. Mr Miliband seeks to quash any doubts about his shadow chancellor's ability to turn the tide. "Ed Balls is uniquely qualified to be Chancellor of the Exchequer," he says, praising "his grasp of economics and his creativity." Whether things go better for Mr Miliband depends, in large part, on a coherent economic prospectus. How, for instance, does he square his focus on the "British promise" and intergenerational fairness with criticism of Mr Osborne's "granny tax." Is it not fair to take a little from wealthier pensioners at a time when the young are suffering disproportionately? But this is in the context of giving money to the richest people in Britain. You're penalising people on fixed incomes. People rely on their income to pay for residential care. It's pretty unfair. Mr Miliband is "worried" about the National Planning Policy Framework, which comes into force on Tuesday. You've got to build on brownfield sites first, and I don't know why they aren't doing that. The second worry is that we want to build up high streets, not close them down, and the third is that you have to let local authorities develop their own plans. Once the Government was sceptical. Suddenly they get pressure from developers and go the other way. Surely the problem is partly the fault of Labour, who built far too few houses? Sure, but they've built even fewer. Now all their chickens are coming home to roost - if they can find anywhere to roost. Though scathing about the Tories, Mr Miliband is hardly less damning of Nick Clegg. Asked if he could envisage working with the Lib Dem leader in a coalition, he says: "If I was a Lib Dem, I would be just tearing my hair out. He is ... a passenger on the George Osborne supertanker. Away from the public stage, Mr Miliband is as serious as ever. Though nerveless, apart from a trace of pre-Budget stage fright, he appears thinner. Devoted as he is to his wife and two sons, he prefers to tell stories about other people's children - the unemployed youngsters whose fates he describes as a "tragedy." The Budget, in his view, has offered him his chance. The mask has slipped. It's become more obvious who Cameron and Osborne really are. The PM and the Chancellor, he says, will have to fight the election on the battleground of fairness in adversity. It's a good phrase, but George Osborne didn't use it. It means that rewards are fairly shared and that equality of sacrifice [prevails] in hard times. That has been the spirit of Britain down the ages. Whether that message will take Labour's leader to Downing Street remains uncertain, even to him. One-term opposition is a tough job, but that is my task. That's my mission. I'm confident and optimistic, but it's a tough ask. Mr Miliband believes that Mr Osborne's Budget has offered him his best chance. The public will judge, in the coming months, whether - like the owner of his local curry house - they are prepared to offer their endorsement.