Ed’s inbox – March 18th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

A moment of hope and a word of praise – Hopi Sen
By Hopi Sen

After what feels like an age of indecision, yet is in fact less than a month, the UN resolution on Libya feels like a moment of hope. That hope is qualified, uncertain and unsure, of course, but real.

Like many more qualified, I worry that the progress that Gadaffi has made in the last fortnight has been enough to secure his regime, and isolate the rebellion. the UN resolution allows the protection of civilians, but that task will be hard to enforce from the air alone, especially in areas under the control of the regime. The knock at the door, the midnight kidnappings, torture and death squads will continue. The regime must surely fall, but it may yet hurt many as it collapses. – Read more.

Hard to disagree with anything Cameron said on Libya today – Alastair Campbell
By Alastair Campbell

Having devoted many words on this blog to pointing out David Cameron’s failings, it seems fair to point out how well he has done with regard to Libya in the last few days.

It looked highly unlikely a few days ago that the UN would agree to the approach the Prime Minister has just set out in the Commons, not least because of all the signals coming from the US Administration that a no-fly zone was unworkable and/or limited in its potential impact. – Read more.

The UN, and the bombing begins – Michael Tomasky
By Michael Tomasky

So the strikes will begin soon. I guess one has to say that this sort of thing is pretty much what the UN was created for. The 10-0 vote and the backing of the Arab League, taken so far as we know of its own volition, do show a genuinely multilateral and international approach to dealing with crisis.

Contrast this most obviously with Iraq, when it was clear that the US was going in (Bush still lies about this point, even in Decision Points, which is patently ridiculous, but he has to lie about it because to tell the truth suddenly after years of maintaining this crucial lie would destroy whatever vestigial credibility he retains). And when we bullied and browbeat other Security Council members into voting with us. And at least Obama isn’t running around and making a humiliating spectacle of himself by bragging about the Marshall Islands being involved. – Read more.

ESA week ends in Success! – Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
By Sue Marsh

As if fate knew how hard we’ve worked this week, (ESA week) how much it has cost us to write and to fight and to explain, yesterday, the government announced that they would hold a public inquiry into ESA.

I will work on my own submission, however, Anne Begg MP has suggested that many individual submissions will always carry more weight than a collective response. Please take a few moments to read the issues outlined in the enquiry below and if you feel one or more have affected you, I urge you to write a short statement. It might be a description of how unsuitable your assessment was, your experiences of ATOS, or how time limiting the benefit could affect your partner’s ability to keep working. If you have been through the worry and fear of a tribunal, we need to explain how this fails too and how hard it is to always be fighting. – Read more.

Blow for Cameron: Tories lose Tunbridge Wells – Liberal Conspiracy
By Don Paskini

It’s only one local election result, but very, very amusing. Yesterday saw a by-election in Tunbridge Wells, in a ward which the Tories have won for the past five years with more than 50% of the vote.

The three candidates were Tory, Lib Dem and UKIP (shame on Labour and the Greens for not standing, but Tunbridge Wells is not exactly a hot bed of socialism). The Lib Dems polled 43%, slightly up on their performance last year. But the Tory vote slumped from 59% to 34%, with UKIP polling 22.4%. – Read more.

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