Jon Cruddas: filling Labour's 'One Nation' policy blanks Jon Cruddas, the co-ordinator of Labour's policy review, is the man who must fill in Labour's policy blank page - along with a series of commissions, seminars and conversations that would challenge the most sophisticated flow diagrams. With the party enjoying an apparently soft lead in the polls at this stage in the electoral cycle and voters beginning to look to Labour for solutions rather than critiques or its "One Nation" slogans, it is Cruddas's task to provide definition. He insists he is not daunted, saying: "There is a lot of energy and creativity in this review." An analysis of the work under way suggests far more has been commissioned, or published, than normally assumed. As the third most interesting party at Westminster after the coalition partners, and the fourth most interesting in the country after the newcomers Ukip, Labour often gets ignored. Cruddas is determined the policy review does not fall into a mechanistic set of Whitehall prescriptions that is designed to modernise the country but fails to strike the right note with the electorate. With his "Blue Labour" roots, Cruddas insists "it is tackling issues politics have ignored for decades like mental health, fatherhood and the ownership of football clubs or learning lessons from far and wide - even Republican Texans on prison reform." He tries, not always successfully, to put the aspirations for the review in everyday language. Work and home is what One Nation is about - family life, how people live everyday life. Care for people, pride in country. Radical change to conserve the good in our society. That means building up institutions that mediate globalisation and protect society and common life, and institutions that help generate a vibrant market economy. We need wealth creation and we need it produced more evenly across the country. Probably more than any other Labour thinker, he tapped into what he describes as "the modern anomie" - the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and their community - on which Ukip has thrived. He is determined to make sure the review looks at issues such as how local communities have more say in shaping their lives, with policies on high streets and back-to-work programmes. At the launch of the review, he said: "In Labour, we often tend to consider a desire to conserve settled ways of life as hindering our own, or indeed humanity's progress. For many on the left they have become reactionary feelings; we deem this search for belonging as an irrational conservative pathology. Although Ed Miliband's personal ratings remain unimpressive, especially on his ability to take tough decisions, many, including surprisingly the leading rightwinger David Davis, recognise some political skills. Davis told the BBC's Question Time Extra Time: "Miliband was clever in his choice of tactics, his choice of battleground. He knows much better than [Gordon] Brown ever did how to play the out-of-touch argument, which is a sort of class argument really. And he does it very effectively. My instinct is, he's going to be cleverer than we think and we'd be very unwise to take him less than seriously. He also said Miliband was right not to present too much policy. It won't gain them anything. It might give us some targets. There will be some difficult issues ahead for Labour to resolve: the deficit reduction path, immigration caps, Trident, a European referendum, the 50p tax rate, making a reality of the localism agenda. But Miliband is also firmly of the view that the party should not be laden with piles of policies at this stage. Lord Adonis, Miliband's adviser on industrial policy, agrees. He says in terms of detailed policy announcements "of course you don't do that two years before the election, because of five-year fixed term parliaments we're still essentially in mid-term." Adonis argues: "People say it's about right and left, but to my mind it is much more about issues that were irrelevant that have become relevant. The economy is clearly not capable of producing enough jobs and not capable of producing enough well-paid jobs and it is failing terribly at providing opportunities for young people. Those are now central issues in politics in a way that they weren't when we were in government to the end. A large part of politics, in my view, is about understanding when and how the agenda changes and moving on to the new agenda and not obsessing about the old one. In the next 10 years the big issue of politics is not public service reform - the big issue in politics is where are the jobs going to come from and how we can get enough highly paid jobs to see that people can lead a decent life and not be dependent on welfare, this is the critical issue that we've got to deal with. From now on, it is only going to get tougher. The media glare is going to become more intense, and Labour will find itself under a new level of scrutiny. It does not have infinite time. Labour's policy action plan Policy work is being conducted through two streams that are both due to report to the national policy forum and the annual conference, leading to a meeting of the shadow cabinet and national executive on eve of the election, when the manifesto is endorsed. They are working to two cycles, with some policy ready for the 2013 conference and the remainder for 2014. Shadow cabinet groups chaired by Ed Miliband 1 The economy: plans for a British investment bank; building a transparent banking system; a new pensions system; energy market reform. 2 Society: a commission on older women; women's personal safety; empowering local communities; library reform; the housing market; services for young people; children, food and obesity. Labour national policy forum Eight policy commissions on: 1 Stability and prosperity; investment and tax avoidance. 2 Work and business policy. 3 Living standards; transport and wellbeing. 4 Stronger, safer communities; housing crisis, private rented sector. 5 Education and children, including childcare. 6 Health and care; delivering integration of health and social care. 7 Reform of the political system. 8 Britain's global role. There are separate independent reviews established by the shadow cabinet on industrial policy, infrastructure, long-termism in industry, police reform and apprenticeships.