Someone once said that the only way that religion works is by immediately qualifying each statement with a following one – God is One, God is a Trinity; Jesus is fully human, and fully divine, and so on. The leadership candidates’ views on the future of the Labour party appear to follow a similar template. They love Labour, yet want it to change radically. They’re very proud of the last government, yet expound at length on its failures. They want party members to have more say, while desiring non-members to have more say too.

None of this is necessarily contradictory, and in any election it is wise to engage in a bit of creative ambiguity. People will take from your statements what they want to hear and presume that you are only saying the other stuff to keep someone else happy.

So bearing this in mind, what did the candidates say about their vision for the future of the party and what can we expect in the way of party reform from our new leader?

David Miliband and Andy Burnham have the most detailed proposals. David Miliband has produced a six-point plan, which includes an elected party chair and a doubling of membership. He proposes (as does Ed Balls) putting the leaders of Labour in Scotland and Wales on to the NEC; an excellent suggestion, and one I argued for in government. His big idea is a Movement for Change to engage with people beyond the traditional structures of party politics, and he has been busily training 1,000 community organisers. David Miliband’s plan, while good, is vague on the nitty-gritty of how he proposes to alter the way we do policy formulation, which is where rhetoric must give way to reality.

Burnham has a weighty manifesto combining some very good ideas – extending the remit of conference delegates to a year-long post to involve them in more detailed policy formulation – as well as populist tosh, like ending so-called ‘parachuting-in’ of PPCs against the wishes of local parties (how often has this actually happened?). But, once again, details are scarce: membership fees are too high, but he doesn’t say what they should be. He wants to prioritise younger members (good), but his proposal on how to do this is to invite them to meetings (not so good).

Surprisingly for a policy specialist, Ed Miliband has the thinnest prospectus of any of the male candidates, though the most passionate rhetoric. He wants the party to campaign more (anyone want it to campaign less?), but it would have been fascinating to hear his views on how he would put in place a structure that might result in producing a successful manifesto next time.

Balls promises a diversity fund to help people from under-represented groups stand for office, and like Burnham, he rails against the imposition of leadership-backed candidates on local party members. He dislikes the way in which the Warwick proposals – the party agreement with the trade unions – were watered down for the manifesto, and wants the National Policy Forum to be overhauled.

Diane Abbott wants to ‘turn the page, change the party’ but does not bother to explain to the party how she proposes to do this beyond giving us all ‘more of a say’.

The truth is all of the candidates are saying much the same thing: more members; stronger grassroots; a renewed role for conference; parties more embedded in communities; closer links with the unions; reform of the NPF; an end to command-and-control party management. But there is an absence of detail and a surfeit of rhetoric, so we must wait to see how this campaign poetry will become administrative prose.