Ed’s inbox: February 28th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

News International use Labour to assault Tories – Liberal Conspiracy
By Sunny Hundal

Labour launched an all-out assault on Conservatives this weekend over the falling living standards for middle income earners.

What’s interesting is partly that rather than focusing on how the budget deficit would be reduced, where Labour still have a problem with their narrative, it focuses on how the government’s actions are ‘squeezing the middle’.

Curious too, that News International continue to lead on this attack, offering considerable space to Ed Balls. – Read more.

Why soup kitchen ban is only first skirmish in coming battles over homelessness – Next Left
By Sunder Katwala

The richest Tory-run Council in the country is seeking to ban soup kitchens for the homeless from an area around Westminster Cathedral. Labour Uncut has provided the documents to prove that they really hadn’t made up the story with a “you couldn’t make it up” feel to it.

A controversy over banning soup kitchens could prove particularly toxic for the “big society”. Coming so soon after much ‘big society tsar has too little time for the role’ satire, the big idea could certainly do without another existential credibility controversy, while Steve Hilton seeks to patiently nurse it back to health after Andy Coulson’s attempt to kill it with kindness through benign communications neglect. – Read more.

Cameron the Naive-l – Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
By Sue Marsh

Last week, my brilliant friend Eoin Clarke wrote this about Cameron’s ill-fated Egyptian visit. Now Eoin is scrupulously fair, non-partisan to a fault. You might notice he doesn’t even mention the list of arms dealers he took with him. He does however, point out that :

“Cameron is meeting all the opposition parties except for the most popular, Muslim Brotherhood. In rather explicit terms he is, rather naively the poor sod, gifting the Muslim Brotherhood a propaganda coup.”

I’m not the only commentator today asking the question : Is Cameron just hopelessly naive? Or is there much more to it than that? – Read more.

Ed’s speech and what George will do about it – Hopi Sen
By Hopi Sen

Eighteen months ago, I found myself in conversation with a thoughtful Labour MP who was concerned about the politics of austerity. I politely disagreed with him. It wasn’t a politics of austerity the left needed, but a politics of growth.

I was reminded of the importance of a politics of growth this weekend, when reading the excellent interventions on the economy and the cost of living by Ed Miliband, backed up by Ed Balls.

(Credit should go perhaps to Duncan Weldon, who has been talking about cost of living and living standards as an important issue for some time.) – Read more.

We can’t afford the luxury of leaving the page blank for much longer – Labour Uncut
By Tom Harris

Ed Miliband was predictably mocked by the Tory benches after his “blank piece of paper” initiative was leaked.

Yet even those government MPs who were oh-so-cleverly holding up their blank order papers for the TV cameras knew that opposition parties, in the immediate aftermath of an election defeat, always – always – review their policy from scratch. The Tories did it in 2005, and in 2001 and in 1997. I seem to remember a perpetual policy review throughout the 80s and into the 90s (remember “Labour Listens”)?

The fact is that the 2010 manifesto failed. It was rejected. It is now deceased, an ex-manifesto. It has joined the Choir Eternal in manifesto heaven. And we will need a brand new one before 2015. – 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.