Brice: I'm a partner in Spotting Alesse Miliband himself is moving into election fighting mode. His speech at Labour conference next week will ditch the intellectual complexity of his previous addresses and talk only about ‘the cost of living crisis’. It will, I’m told, contain ‘practical measures’ to help families with their budgets. This may resonate more deeply than you’d expect. Official government forecasts suggest it may be 2018 before the average British worker returns to a pre-crash standard of living. As one senior Treasury figure admits, ‘Some of his stuff about living standards is cutting through.’