Politics is about providing answers to the complex questions of the day.

The most successful politicians and political parties are those which have the most convincing and attractive answers to the biggest challenges of the day.

During the so called Nice years (Non Inflationary Continuous Expansion) of the late 1990s and early noughties, i.e. the time before the crash, New Labour and to a large extent our sister parties answered the questions voters were asking. And not just a segment of voters, the majority of voters, all across the country.

The key concern at that time for voters was about “getting on, not just getting by” to quote a famous Gordon Brown phrase. This was the politics of aspiration, of success, of social mobility, of building an enabling state to empower its citizens to achieve their best.

The Third Way/Nue Mitte politics of mid 1990s social democrat revisionism understood voters core political and economic concerns and spelled out, platforms to answer the voters question, “How do I get ahead in a fast moving world and how can I get the best for my family”.

Our parties understood we needed to empower citizens who wanted to flourish, using certain supply side economic policies. From Sweden to Spain our parties held office with a common thread of a political narrative that was well thought through and consistent, but with room for national trends. We rose together as a group of parties. We understood what people wanted from the 21st century and how as social democrats, we could harness state power and the market economy to help provide it.

However we have lost our way. David Miliband and Douglas Alexander have made bold and strong steps in taking the debate forward on the challenges facing our parties and the social democrat tradition in the world post the economic crisis.

For me, we need to realise that the economic crisis has changed the debate. In the GRIM decade (Growth Restricted and Inflationary Misery) that we’re in the midst of, while understanding aspiration is still crucial, it is anxiety which dominates people’s concerns today.

For Ed Miliband and the leaders of all of our social democrat parties, to win again we need a collective answer to anxieties, from the economic to the identity. The result of the Irish Labour party was the first hint that a social democrat party, rather than being punished in the crisis by a rush to the right, could make some ground. Ireland was in a unique situation and Labour worked hard to gain economic credibility and benefitting from an electoral pasting for the ruling Fianna Fail party.

In Britain, the party that wins the next general election will be the party that answers voters’ fears and worries as well as speaking to their hopes and dreams. Since the crisis, the question voters are asking themselves before casting a ballot is, “How do I keep me and my family stable and safe in a world that feels like it’s moving very fast.” We’ve still got a lot of work to do to make sure the natural answer to that question, all around the country, is a vote for Labour.