Ed’s inbox: January 21st

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

If Ed Miliband could only read five blogposts each day, he’d read these ones…

Why the ‘indispensable’ Andy Coulson had to go – Next Left
By Sunder Katwala

As a bleeding-heart liberal, I would certainly want to consider supporting David Cameron’s “people deserve a second chance” defence of his outgoing director of communications Andy Coulson. After all, even if Coulson was somewhat less keen on Ken Clarke’s “rehabilitation revolution” than I am, that is no reason not to seek to take the principle to the very heart of the Downing Street machine.

Yet it was perfectly obvious that Andy Coulson had to go. Sometimes giving 110% just isn’t enough. This blog’s argument in October as to why he couldn’t survive stands up pretty well (though I was a month out on the timing, in suggesting he was likely to go by Christmas). – Read more

Lessons from the 1990s – ippr
By Nick Pearce

Most of the commentary on Ed Balls’s appointment as Shadow Chancellor has focused on his role as Gordon Brown’s right-hand man during Labour’s time in office. More instructive, perhaps, is to look at the period between 1992 and 1997, when Gordon Brown was himself Shadow Chancellor, for it can teach us a few things about how Balls might discharge his new responsibilities in the months and years ahead.

The most important and obvious fact is that as soon as Brown became Shadow Chancellor in 1992 he established a reputation for fiscal prudence which he was to guard zealously right up until the financial crisis hit in 2008. His positioning as an “Iron Chancellor” made him deeply unpopular on the Keynesian left in the early 1990s and it probably cost him the support that might have sustained a leadership bid when John Smith died. But fiscal rectitude, ruthlessly applied, was a key ingredient in Labour’s electoral success in 1997 – even if it meant that important increases in spending, on capital infrastructure in particular, were slow to get started in the years to follow. – Read more

The Ed-Ed dynamic now key to Labour success – Alastair Campbell
By Alastair Campbell

Ed Miliband made much during the Labour leadership election of saying we had to ‘learn the lessons’ of why we lost power. Correct. However, we must also learn the lessons of why we won power, and won three general elections, among them the understanding that most people live their lives on or close to the political centre ground.

Another reason for the three wins, and all we did in the three terms we had, was the formidable political and intellectual skills of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. One reason for the former was that whilst often the relationship was productive, often it was not. – Read more

Ed-ucating Labour – Hopi Sen
By Hopi Sen

An old online friend (a correspondent for ages, a fellow admirer of Mr Alan Johnson), is aghast at me. Why am I cheerful at the accession of Ed Balls to the shadow chancellorship – and why did I say that Alan Johnson might have moved on before the next election anyway?

Fair enough. I shall explicate.

Like almost everyone in the Labour party (some in the LRC seem happy) I’m saddened by Alan’s premature departure. I had pictured him setting the foundation for Labour’s sensible deficit reduction, then once that was achieved, departing to plaudits and bouquets. Why departing? – Read more

Blair Blah – Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
By Sue Marsh

When I thought about writing publicly, I only made one rule : Say what you think honestly. Never consider if it will be too controversial, or too unpalatable, or too taboo.

I have a feeling this one might not go down awfully well though. On the day Blair appears before Chilcot again I just can’t bear the howls of outraged guff to go totally unchallenged. Wouldn’t be democratic would it?

Firstly, Iraq. #iraqenquiry is now averaging 0.87 tweets a second on Twitter – what do these Tweeps honestly expect to hear? More to the point, is there anything they can possibly say that hasn’t already been tweeted, blogged, posted and debated ad nauseum? Oh yes, of course, this morning is the moment when Blair will finally announce he is in fact more evil than Mugabe and had a cunning plan for world domination since he was three years old. It says a lot about the debate on this issue that most anti-war, anti-Blair people wouldn’t disagree with either of those statements. – Read more

Our suggestions for Ed’s inbox are limited by what we read – so if you’ve seen a blogpost that should be in Ed’s inbox, let us know.