Ed’s inbox – February 8th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Why the student movement in England is essentially dead – Liberal Conspiracy
By Sunny Hundal

There is growing media chatter globally about the “rising anger” of this generation’s youth. Student protests in the UK; uprisings across the Middle East; the rise of India and China; things kicking off elsewhere etc.

But its also too easy to overstate the impact of these changes, especially if the student movement here is anything to go by.

The first demonstration of November 2010 brought with it a tidal wave of hyperbole about the impact students would have on the current government. This was Britain’s 1968, we were told almost daily. It has yet to materialise into anything coherent and politically potent. – Read more.

Volunteering isn’t free, much less free labour – Sarah Hayward’s Blog
By Sarah Hayward

A slew of criticisms of the ‘Big Society’ have surfaced over the last week. It started with Lord Wei, via Liverpool City Council and moved on to what appears to be active briefing against the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles by his own party.

A point seems to have been lost in all the debate about (and ridicule of) whether Cameron’s ‘platoons of volunteers’ can really take up the slack where public services are slashed, is that volunteering is not, in actual fact, free. – Read more.

Why do we tolerate these preachers of hate? Because we are British – Labour Uncut
By Dan Hodges

Sitting in a Luton hotel room on Saturday, listening to members of the English Defence League chanting boastfully, and slightly implausibly, about how they had, “fucked all of Allah’s wives”, my thoughts drifted to the issue of multiculturalism. Being surrounded by a couple of thousand tanked up Islamaphobes can do that to you.

My musings were given structure by the words of David Cameron, delivered that morning to the Munich security conference. British prime ministers have a poor record of departing that particular German city with the security of their nation enhanced, and I perused his speech with some scepticism. Once I’d finished it, scepticism had changed to bewilderment. – Read more.

Robinson and McGuinness on song – Alastair Campbell
By Alastair Campbell

One of the questions I faced constantly in Belfast yesterday was whether I thought Martin McGuinness would be an acceptable first minister of Northern Ireland.

The question is being asked because of the possibility that Sinn Fein will poll the most votes in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections. It seems unlikely to me, but that the question is being asked at all shows how far the peace process has come. – Read more.

The coalition’s unfair pensions changes will hit women hardest – Left Foot Forward
By Yvette Cooper MP

From child care support to pensions, from employment to bus travel, it seems David Cameron’s government is determined to hit women hardest. As Rachel Reeves’s campaign has shown, the plans to change the pension age are the latest in a long line of measures which leave women with an unfair deal.

Don’t get me wrong. Everyone recognises that as we live longer, healthier lives, we will need to work for longer to support ourselves, our families and our communities. So it is reasonable to expect people in their thirties and forties to work beyond 65. – 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.