David Cameron and Nick Clegg's coalition is a "counsel of despair" that is rewarding the bankers while making the poor and middle class suffer, Ed Miliband has said.
In a New Years message to be broadcast on Thursday, the Labour leader will accuse the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have of failing to insulate Britain from the worst effects of a growing global economic crisis.
"Having failed in their promise to make Britain a safe haven, they now say that there is no alternative to rising joblessness and years of falling living standards for working people. It is a counsel of despair," he said.
"When the challenges facing our country are greatest for a generation, many people feel politics cannot answer their problems. Some believe things would be the same whoever was in charge.
"My party's mission in 2012 is to show politics can make a difference. To demonstrate that optimism can defeat despair. That politics can rise to meet the challenges Britain faces even when the challenges are so great."
Miliband pledged to set out a plan for a "more responsible capitalism" and a "new approach to our economy and our society".
"So when this government, in the Treasury’s Autumn Statement, takes three times as much from the working poor as from the banks, it shows where its priorities lie - with the privileged few," he will say. "And when Labour says it would choose to tax the bankers' bonuses in order to put our young people back to work, it shows who we are as a party and where our priorities lie."
The Labour leader's comments echo his words in an interview with the Daily Mirror on Boxing Day when he said ministers were trying to "instil pessimism" in the country.
However Miliband must despair himself sometimes at his apparent inability to make any headway in the polls considering the faltering economic recovery.
A poll conducted for the Guardian this week showed that Labour was tied in a neck-and-neck fight with the Tories for voter support.
But David Cameron was shown to have a personal favourability rating of +5 points while Miliband secured a rating of -17 points.
And worryingly for Labour, asked to consider who was better able to "manage the economy properly", 44% of respondents chose Cameron and George Osborne compared to just 23% who preferred Miliband and shadow chancellor, Ed Balls.
Yesterday Nick Clegg, who had a personal rating of -19 in the Guardian poll, defended the Liberal Democrat's record in government over the past year, but warned that Britain is in for a tough 2012.