Labour’s Ed Miliband will deliver his first speech in Scotland as party leader today and if The Scotsman’s sneak preview is anything to go by then the fire and ire will be turned on the SNP and First Minister Salmond will be called a big liar.

The snippet includes the line:

“Let’s face it, across the world, the debate has changed since the financial crisis. Who is left behind? The Scottish National Party.”

I have to admit I find it an odd choice of narrative, an unnervingly pessimistic tone from the ‘new generation’ in Labour’s ranks.

With this rhetoric, Ed will invite Scots to think back to 2007/2008, when Scottish politics felt exciting, when the Scottish Government could seemingly do no wrong and the Scottish people flirted seriously with the idea of independence. Harking back to those times when Labour didn’t have too many ideas is a dangerous thing to do for a party that, north of the border, still doesn’t have too many ideas.

After all, first impressions count. Ed is setting his stall out for the Scottish Labour party and the Scottish people as a whole so he surely wants to get off on the correct tone. Iain Gray moodily bashed the SNP in his acceptance speech and he has barely looked up since. Let’s hope Ed decides to raise the bar a little bit higher than that.

So this all begs the question, what should Ed Miliband say?

Well, I rather hope that we are being fed the meanest lines of today’s speech and Ed will strike a more upbeat, optimistic tone. I do hope there is, as promised, some agreement with the cuts that the coalition are bringing in and I hope Ed is specific about what areas he disagrees with Cameron and Clegg the most. There may not be an election around the corner but it is important to have clear dividing lines amongst your leading politicians rather than just broad bickering back and forth.

I hope to hear more about Ed’s thoughts on Trident replacement and on the Calman proposals, getting into the specifics a bit more. The former Enivornment Secretary’s views on the fight against Climate Change and how Scotland is placed to both contribute to and capitalise from it. I would also like to hear about how he plans to propose amending the coalition’s housing policy, particularly after Nicola Sturgeon’s revelation on BBC Question Time last night that 97% of Scots who currently claim will be £10 a week worse off, money many of them can ill-afford to lose.

I rather suspect listeners will get to tick off the tired lines of ‘an independent Scotland couldn’t have saved the banks’ and ‘Ireland and Iceland? some arc of prosperity’ but I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

We are surely past the time when a leader of any party can trot up to the lectern, bash every other party and then trot offstage again thinking that was a job well done. We in turn should be ready to reward a political leader who dares to look beyond the horizon of the next headline.

Preaching to the converted Ed Miliband may well be in Scotland today but he still has a big job on his hands.