Labour is betting everything on its new brand of pothole politics Miliband's own variant on the grassroots formula began some weeks ago, on a snowy night in London's Brixton Market, when he addressed traders and small-company bosses with his business spokesman, Chuka Umunna. Since then, he has chosen street markets across Britain as the forum for his campaign. Not all of his walkabouts have featured turnip vendors and boarded-up shop fronts. In Cambridge, for example, Mr Miliband strolled past stalls selling goose eggs and fresh clementine juice before setting up his pallet in the shadow of Cath Kidston and Hugo Boss. His message, to the more-or-less squeezed middle, has been a rallying cry on behalf of the consumer against energy giants, "betting shops and pay-day lenders taking over high streets" and assorted agents of rip-off Britain. The first test of Mr Miliband's homespun version of market forces will come in tomorrow's elections, in which a gain of around 350 seats would constitute a good result for Labour. Even if his party does well, Mr Miliband's "vision" remains to be tested. Although Mr Graf is hoping for considerable gains, he is diffident about the chances of winning Lancashire, given the width of the gap and the short time he has had to bridge it. Meanwhile, vital counties in the South, such as Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire, are relatively untouched by change. A longer-term strategic report prepared by the well-regarded John Denham on tackling "southern discomfort" will not even be presented to Mr Miliband until these elections are over. Elsewhere, Mr Graf's volunteer army is growing. With dozens of paid organisers now fully trained, hundreds of volunteers are being sought across the country. By 2015, in Mr Miliband's expectation, the cold-calling, clipboard-wielding, envelope-stuffing (and much depleted) Labour machine will have been replaced, or fortified, by fledgling activists for whom politics is about playgroups, dog-fouling, bin collections and subsiding streets. Yet localism has a flipside. Mr Miliband's passion for bottom-up politics, and his consequent contempt for the command-and-control style of the Blair/Brown era, may explain his dismal performance on World at One on Monday. An hour or so before transmission, the Miliband entourage sounded relaxed as it headed towards Blackpool. With his speech on six putative economic Bills under his belt, there was no sense of impending disaster. And, in fairness, Mr Miliband's performance on Radio 4 was not the horror show his enemies depict. Even so, his sugar rush of breathless evasions made him sound under-prepared and far from prime ministerial. His responses lacked polish and, worse, frankness. If Mr Miliband is considering - as would be perfectly respectable - spending more in the short term to boost growth, with a guarantee of deficit reduction in the medium term, then he should have had the courtesy to level with voters. The explanation was that Mr Miliband was "in stump speech mode." Quick to acknowledge privately that "this was not his finest hour," he clarified some comments in a television interview yesterday. Even so, he cannot afford such unforced errors, especially in the week when he wants voters to back him in their thousands. Rarely has Labour had the benefit of such flaky opposition. The Lib Dems are weakened, the Tories are split, and to call Ukip "fruitcakes and loonies," as David Cameron did, is too charitable. Forget, for a moment, the sinister nature of Nigel Farage's less savoury candidates and consider his party's economic offer. One analysis shows that its 2010 election manifesto proposed tax cuts of £90 billion a year and increased spending of £30 billion, adding up to a "£120 billion black hole" of uncosted pledges. Such profligacy makes Ed Balls, even in Labour's high-rolling days, look like the Mother Teresa of the public purse. Against this competition, Mr Miliband's poll lead, now down to 10 per cent, appears perilously fragile. As he knows, there is no safe way for a party leader to jump. Polling by YouGov for a Resolution Foundation study, out this week, shows that the country is almost evenly split on whether cutting the deficit or promoting growth should be the top government priority. Although growth currently holds a slight lead over control, that balance might switch in the heat of an election campaign, leaving Labour exposed to Tory taunts of "tax bombshells." The Opposition has another challenge in dealing with the mood forged by uncertainty. Speaking at the launch of the foundation's report, Mr Miliband's leading strategist, Stewart Wood, talked about how Labour could address the flow between realism, pessimism and fatalism. To that list, he might have added nihilism. The Ukip surge in tomorrow's elections will, assuming it comes to pass, be the spasm of a country that has lost its faith in providence, prosperity and most of all in politics. That is why Mr Miliband's emphasis on local activism and "viral" recruitment could yet prove to be one of the most valuable breakthroughs of this Parliament. Blue Labourites, such as Jon Cruddas and Lord Glasman, have long been aware that localism might be key to a general election victory. Tomorrow will be an early test of that theory. Even if it proves to be correct, Mr Miliband's Radio 4 interview suggests a caveat for a future of pothole politics. Don't dig one and jump in.