Post-Miliband meltdown, the Blairites are back

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Charles Clarke, Alan Johnson, all the Blairites are hitting the airwaves saying Miliband's 'left wing' platform is what lost it for Labour and saying they need to go back to 'aspirational' new Labour. Who can argue with aspiration? Everyone wants a good life, obviously. But aspiration under Blair and Cameron is code for a false either-or - that solidarity (collectively ensuring everyone has access to the essential elements of a good life - education, healthcare, a home) is anathema to economic success. You can't have both. We've been told that for 35 years and looking at the electoral map today, it appears that most of England agrees.
But really, was that it? It could simply be that Miliband comes over like a north London policy wonk with no connection to the real world - and he fatally refused the hand of the only ally who could have helped him into Downing St - Nicola Sturgeon. Labour was arrogant enough to think it could win alone - and have nothing to do with the other progressive parties.
Miliband's narrative was feeble and unclear for so long - even the Mansion Tax was a Lib Dem policy, not exactly nationalisation of the commanding heights. In fact if he had come out for rail and energy nationalisation, rather than the feeble price freeze, he might have sounded like he had a coherent policy for returning to a mixed economy and breaking with neoliberalism.
It's obvious that aside from Brighton, left wing voters are no more than 10% of the country (or 5% if you exclude SNP Scots). Left-wing candidates scored almost nothing.
But a lot of how you win people over to more social-democratic policies is framing. In Scotland, SNP speaks the language of social democracy and won 50% of the vote.
Saying you will build social housing and regulate private rents is not incompatible with 'aspiration' - it's for aspiration (not to hand all your money over to rapacious landlords), for everyone, not just the middle class. It's saying that everyone should have the elements of a decent life. After all, the Tories have no problem subsidising the rich: housing benefit is a massive taxpayer subsidy to landlords, as is low wages and zero hours - its 'taxpayers' subsidising big business.
Miliband (or whoever replaces him) could have said it's time to stop wasting billions of 'your hard earned money' on subsidies to business and landlords and instead bring in a living wage and fix the housing market - and cut those rich people benefits. Flip the Tory welfare scrounger language on its head. He never articulated that because Labour is forever terrified of being portrayed as 'left wing.' The Blairite view is based on four Labour election defeats from 1979-92: they concluded that you can't change the right-wing narrative, so you must mirror it and sneak in your policies under the radar. But that policy has major drawbacks - it ultimately feeds right-wing ideological domination (as well as leaving the economic model mostly untouched, which came a cropper in 2008 with the financial crash). It's tough accepting that you live in a right-wing country, but if an opposition can link personal interests with a wider narrative of social solidarity, it can win millions of votes - just look at Scotland. May be the Labour party should throw the leadership election wide open - come on Nicola!