When a shell-shocked Ed Miliband stepped down as Labour leader following the party's defeat in the 2015 election, he concluded his speech by saying that:

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'The course of progress and social justice is never simple or straightforward. Change happens because people don’t give up, they don’t take no for an answer, they keep demanding change'

The change that party members demanded from the blank slate of Labour’s election defeat turned out to be Jeremy Corbyn; and Miliband slunk back to Doncaster to not ‘take no for an answer’ - from the scenic climes of the backbenches. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Last week, I voiced my frustration that Miliband was appearing more on Twitter than in Hansard. Just days later, he popped up on Channel 4’s The Last Leg, dressed as A-ha and lip-synced along to ‘Take On Me’. But then, who can blame him for having a good time when the Labour party is in such rude health and the Syrian conflict, which he was instrumental in addressing, has been solved, leaving peace and stability to reign in the Middle East?

‘I don’t resile from the decision,' he told Adam Hills when he was asked about voting against airstrikes against the Assad regime in 2013 . ‘The biggest lesson of the Iraq war was: you don’t send our forces into combat unless you know there’s a clear plan, a plan which you believe will make the situation better, not worse.’ This is a position that will appeal to many Labour party members, particularly the 2015 intake, for whom the Iraq war is a burden on their identity. It's also an attractive view for the anti-globalist, anti-interventionist right, who are frustrated by Trump's intervention against Assad. But instead of delivering this message in the Commons, or on Newsnight, Miliband offered it to a late-night comedy panel show, watched by about a million and a half people at best. He then hammered home the gravity of his point by dressing up as a Norwegian pop-band.

Miliband typifies the paradox of the Labour moderates. He has the experience, competence and popularity to provide a strong voice against the hard-right. Yet his serious interventions are few and far between - and his recent attempts to talk up on issues like Brexit and Syria have been received with, at best, lukewarm indifference. Ed Miliband looks increasingly like an ex-politician.

Yet the fact that the 2015 General Election was disastrous for Labour shouldn’t have meant that all the old-hands were put out to pasture. Of the major players in Miliband’s final shadow cabinet, few are influencing the desperate debate about the future of the Labour party in any meaningful way: Ed Balls has dressed up as Korean pop star Psy and now runs a football club; Harriet Harman has a nice shiny book out; and Andy Burnham – poor Andy Burnham – is doing his best to be exiled from the Westminster bubble altogether. Meanwhile, Tony Blair was on Matt Forde’s Unspun this weekend (in an appearance that the Daily Mail branded ‘hilarious’), on that notable current affairs channel, Dave. Increasingly, it seems like only Tom Watson is willing to represent a Labour party that has actually been in the business of opposition, but he cannot do it alone.

Love him or hate him (or something in between) Ed Miliband’s performance at the 2015 election ought not to have been career ending. The Tory party has done a good job of rehoming ex-leaders of late (even Michael Howard gets to declare war on Spain, lucky blighter) and they have proved useful in government. Ed Miliband needs to drop the posing, take off the sunglasses and ditch the air guitar. He should be on the front bench, giving Labour some weight and breathing down Corbyn’s neck.