Predistribution: The Labour leader's latest Big Idea

Sew it to your banners, brothers and sisters. Prepare to march. Join in the cry: "What do we want? Predistribution! When do we want it? Now!"

The Labour leader's latest Big Idea may not be catchy but it is interesting. Ed Miliband, told a seminar at London's Stock Exchange today: "Predistribution is about saying we cannot allow ourselves to be stuck with permanently being a low-wage economy.

"It is neither just, nor does it enable us to pay our way in the world. Our aim must be to transform our economy so it is a much higher skill, higher wage economy."

So far, so familiar - that has been the aspiration of many politicians for a very long time. The importance of the word predistribution is what it is not and what it is meant to signal.

It is not redistribution - put crudely, taxing the rich and transferring resources to the poor.

What it is meant to signal is that the Labour leadership recognises that the deficit will severely limit their capacity to redistribute - to restore the cuts to tax credits and increase non means tested payments to the elderly like the Winter Fuel Allowance.

We know what Labour's two Eds are examining in order to pre-distribute - things like the introduction of a so-called Living Wage so that employers and not the state provide enough money for people to live on, and better training to improve people's employability.

On a day when the OECD has confirmed the grim outlook for the British economy, attention is bound to be focused on the measures the government is deploying to kick-start the British economy and the alternatives Labour proposes.

However, with the 2015 election now looking very open and Labour insiders already talking of being at the start of the "long campaign", watching whether predistribution turns into anything more than an incomprehensible rallying cry will be fascinating.

PS To be fair to Ed the word was not his - it came from the US - and as he was keen to point out when Labour was last in opposition the other Ed spoke in the very venue about "neo-classical endogenous growth theory". Makes predistribution look positively snappy.