Labour Party leader Ed Miliband cast himself as Britain's prime minister-in-waiting on Tuesday, eight months before an election, pledging to wring money from wealthy home owners, hedge funds and tobacco companies to fund better health care.

Miliband's speech at an annual party conference shifted Labour further to the left of the center, where one of his predecessors, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, had anchored it.

"There is a choice of leadership at this election, a real stark choice of leadership: leadership that stands for the privileged few or leadership that fights for you and your family," Miliband, 44, told delegates in Manchester, northern England.