Labour needs to inspire people with a new sense of "national mission" if it is to regain power at the next general election, Ed Miliband has said.
The Labour leader, who is delivering a speech to the Progress think-tank, said that by the time of the last election the party had lost its ability to offer people the vision of a better future.
Writing in The Guardian ahead of his address on Saturday, he said Labour needs to counter the Conservatives' "pessimistic" austerity plans with a "positive, patriotic" message for the country.
"Our message was far too weighted to fear, not hope. It was never enough to inspire victory, or to give people a sufficiently clear and positive vision of this country. By the end of our time in government, we had lost the ability to chart the future," he wrote.
"So our challenge now is to respond to people's desire for a bigger politics and shape a national mission that speaks to their lives. To meet that task requires deep, genuine, lasting change."
He warned that the sort of tactics employed by David Cameron when he became Conservative leader to convince people his party had changed - such as his visit to the Arctic to demonstrate his concern about global warming - would not be enough.
"Some Cameron-type strategy of superficial repositioning is wholly inadequate. It is why I have resisted those who say I must find my version of hug a hoodie - or a husky," he said.
Instead, he said Labour should draw inspiration from its own past successes.
"At the next general election, we must be the optimists, the party with a positive, patriotic mission for our country," he said
"When we have won great victories - in 1945, 1964, 1997 - it has been by defining a new national mission. That is what we can, must and will do again."
