Ed’s inbox – February 18th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Pickles has made only ONE ministerial visit in SIX months – Left Foot Forward
By Shamik Das

It’s fast becoming a week to forget for Eric Pickles. Following his embarrassing error over council bosses’ pay on the Today programme on Wendesday, it emerged today that the communities secretary has only made one ministerial visit in the last six months – and has not made a single visit to the North East, South East, East of England or a London borough since his appointment. – Read more.

How AV would have kept William Hague out of Parliament – Next Left
By Sunder Katwala

William Hague is leading the Tory push against the Alternative Vote. Perhaps he remembers that it would have stopped him from getting into Parliament in the first place.

In most constituencies, an Alternative Vote election and a first-past-the-post election will very likely give the same winning candidate.

Whether you prefer AV or first-past-the-post depend on what you think of those cases where the winning candidate does change. This happens when most voters would prefer one of the other candidates to be the MP, rather than the candidate who is ahead on the first round. Supporters of the status quo complain that this is like giving the gold medal to the sprinter who was second. Supporters of AV respond that the candidate with most support from the voters overall is, as David Aaronovitch puts it (£) “the real winner”.

The curious case of the close shave of Mr William Hague allows us to test these intuitions. – Read more.

Harry Phibbs: non-jobber – Tory Troll
By Adam Bienkov

Over at Conservative Home, Hammersmith’s favourite Councillor, Harry Phibbs lashes out at the rise of “council non-jobs.”

Phibbs quotes local government minister Bob Neill as saying that:

“Crazy non-jobs like cheerleading development officers and press officers tasked with spinning propaganda on bin collections provide no value to the public.”

Now I’m not sure what point Bob is trying to make here, but is he really suggesting that councils shouldn’t employ press officers? – Read more.

Should we be discussing Suicide in debate over cuts? – Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
By Sue Marsh

Laura is 29 years old. Until a few years ago, she was a vet, just qualified and looking forward to her future. She was engaged to Paul and they were planning their wedding. She lived a pretty “normal” life, in a “normal” home and enjoyed walking holidays and playing “cool auntie” with her young nieces and nephews.

Her wages had improved! Finally, after all those years of studying, she could afford the odd luxury. She and Paul treated themselves to a weekend away to Barcelona when she got her first “proper job” and soon after, she’d bought a lovely new car. – Read more.

Two reasons why Libdems might not benefit from AV – Liberal Conspiracy
By Rupert Read

For everyone, from the BBC and Peter Kellner to Nick Clegg himself, there are assumptions that LibDems will benefit from the referendum in May.

And after all, haven’t the LibDems in the past suffered a good deal from the ‘wasted vote’ argument, which AV would put an end to?

But there are two good reasons why this might not happen. – 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.