Ed Miliband yet to convince Britons

Labour Party leader Ed Miliband addresses a rally in Hyde Park, during a protest organised by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), called 'The March for the Alternative,' in central London March 26, 2011.

LONDON (Reuters) - A big winner in the local elections May 5 is likely to be the recently ousted Labour party and its new leader, but Ed Miliband has a long way to go before voters can see him as the nation's prime-minister-in-waiting.

Labour was kicked out of office in 2010 after 13 years in power to pay for the deepest recession since World War Two, leaving behind a record budget deficit that the ruling coalition is cutting fast.

Miliband, a former energy minister, has had to accept blame for the previous government's policy errors and take on the task of overhauling and reviving the brow-beaten party.

Like other European left-wing parties, he must also find a convincing way to rebrand social democratic politics before the next national election in 2015.

It is unclear whether he is the man to do it.

"He is still finding his feet. Part of his problem is that he doesn't come across as sufficiently authoritative as an alternative prime minister," said Wyn Grant, a politics professor at the University of Warwick.

"What people would like to see, and what they haven't seen, is some sort of alternative vision. Many people think that perhaps they made the wrong choice for leader -- but it's still early days."

POLL HIGH

On the surface, things could not be better for the opposition and Miliband, with Labour in the lead in opinion polls for the first time in three years.

The coalition's austerity drive has been met with mass protests, a surge in union activity and threats of widespread industrial action in the public sector. The economy has effectively flatlined for the past six months.

Miliband has shown he has the killer instinct -- the 41-year-old beat his brother David to Labour's top job.

His politics should also find favour with the man in the street. He opposed the Iraq war, wants to reap more tax from banks and was one of the few parliamentarians to emerge unscathed from a far-reaching expenses scandal in 2009.

But the cerebral, Oxford-educated son of a Marxist academic has in truth had a bumpy and unspectacular first six months in charge.

He appointed a man with no expertise in economics as his finance spokesman who quit after just a few months in the job, citing issues in his private life.

He has struggled to match Prime Minister David Cameron in the traditional trading of barbs and wit in parliament, showed poor timing by speaking at an anti-cuts rally as shops were attacked nearby and faced jibes after it emerged he plans an operation to make his voice less nasal.

His party is split over whether it wants to change the voting system, ahead of a referendum on the issue next week.

"He's not had a brilliant six months as leader of the Labour Party -- there's been a lot of sniping about his lack of experience and lack of ability," said University of Bristol politics professor Mark Wickham-Jones, an expert on the party.

"Super Thursday" on May 5, when Britons vote in an array of local council and regional government elections as well as the electoral referendum, could buy him some time.

"He wants to consolidate his power base in the party and the way to do that is to deliver an excellent set of local election results -- it looks like he is going to be able to do that," said Wickham-Jones.

A good result may hush the doubters within his own party but questions will remain, especially among those who feel Labour's improved poll ratings have been down to anger over spending cuts and not because of Miliband's leadership.

When Miliband speaks at his party's annual conference in six months, activists will want to hear him articulate a vision that amounts to more than exploiting the coalition's unpopularity.

"You can't go on being cautious forever," Grant said.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)