Ed’s inbox: February 22nd

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Why has Ed initiated a policy review that by-passes the party? – Left Futures
By Jon Lansman

Ed Miliband wants to undertake a policy review which reconnects with the lives of people with whom we lost touch to develop a programme for government. He also wants “to give party members a proper voice” in “a living breathing party of which people are proud to say they are members and proud to call their own.” He appointed Liam Byrne to do the first, and Peter Hain to do the second. It was always clear that he had not thought through how to separate those two functions. As every week passes, it becomes clearer that separating them gives absolutely the wrong signals to the party about his intentions. He needs to put that right, and fast. – Read more.

Five reasons why the Left should accept Labour council cuts – Liberal Conspiracy
By Paul Cotterill

We are in the midst of a three week period many when many Labour councils are setting their budgets. All of them will make cuts.

Labour councillors up and down the country will receive abuse for what many on the left will see as their betrayal and cowardice. This is the first part of an unashamedly detailed article on why such abuse is both unjustified and counterproductive. Labour councils and the broad left should be coming together to bash out a better way forward than the Tory-pleasing acrimony currently developing. – Read more.

The British left should engage in serious self-reflection over Gaddafi – Left Foot Forward
By Seph Brown

Before discussing the rapidly deteriorating situation in Libya, the Labour Party and the wider British left should engage in serious self-reflection. From Tony Blair to Ken Livingstone, from Alex Salmond to George Galloway, we on the left have often had questionable relationships with Gaddafi’s brutal dictatorship.

It is equally important to remember that ‘brutal’ is not a word which applies only to recent days. – Read more.

An enemy’s thoughts on Tory Strategy… – Hopi Sen
By Hopi Sen

So, while David Cameron is touring the Middle East, promoting arms deals, democracy, his Number Ten team are busy moving in extra people to ensure the centre has a grip on the activities of bumbling ministers. Next they’ll be moving a sofa into the PMs office, and pledging to govern via the will of a small modernising cabal.

Light mockery aside, David Cameron’s appointment of Andrew Cooper as his Director of Political Strategy appears a smart move. (This post by Sunder Katwala is particularly good).

Labour should be nervous of any political adviser whose advice is consistent, rooted in the attitudes of voters and expressed with clarity. Sadly, my partisan hopes of seeing Philip Blond in Number Ten appears a way off. – Read more.

The Responsibility to Protect should set the limits to sovereignty – Next Left
By Sunder Katwala

The Libyan government has been killing its own people, with fears that Colonel Gaddafi will order his armed forces to carry out his son’s blood curdling threat to “fight to the last bullet” in a futile attempt to preserve his crumbling dictatorship.

In doing so, Gaddafi puts to the test the tension which has been at the heart of the UN system since its birth. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”, including “the right to life, liberty and security of person”, and yet the UN Charter, while beginning “we the peoples” is founded in the protection of these rights by sovereign states. States are certainly needed to make human rights a reality – human rights can not exist if a state fails and society descends into ethnic conflict or Hobbesian anarchy. Yet, of course, states violate human rights too. If human rights are to be real then they will have to be able to trump state sovereignty in some cases. – 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.