Ed’s inbox – March 24th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Budget bribes: more state subsidy for Danny Alexander’s railway! – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

Digging by Scrapbook shows the budget includes an eleventh-hour rescue of a state subsidy for railways. One of the key beneficiaries of this change is a 1,970 metre train track running up the northern slopes of Cairn Gorm in Scotland. The MP for the area just happens to be Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander – who also worked for the Cairngorm National Park before he was elected! – Read more.

Boris Johnson finds “magic money” for Croydon Tramlink – Tory Troll
By Adam Bienkov

Shortly after getting elected Boris Johnson scrapped Ken Livingstone’s plans to extend the Croydon Tramlink saying that:

“What we want to do is stop pretending the tooth fairy will come. Some of the plans we just don’t have the money for and the others were never very good ideas anyway.”

A spokesperson told the Evening Standard that implementing such vanity projects would:

“mean finding more than £3billion of “magic money”. – Read more.

Electoral reform: why failure will not breed success – Liberal Conspiracy
By Sunny Hundal

There seem to be a bunch of lefties who are opposed to the Alternative Vote on the basis that it does not go far enough.

Fair enough – I agree it doesn’t go far enough. But the idea that losing the referendum on AV will somehow boost chances of alternatives such as AV+, STV is mind-boggling naive.

Let me explain why. – Read more.

Time for an inquiry into the use of British arms in the Middle East – Left Futures
By Owen Jones

Last Friday, over 50 unarmed protesters were murdered by Yemen’s Western-backed dictatorship. As growing unrest threatened to make Ali Abdullah Saleh the third tyrant toppled by the fury of the Arab street, the dictator opted for a shoot-to-kill policy against his own people:

“They shot people in the back of the head as they were running away,” said Mohammed al-Jamil, an Indian doctor treating the wounded with specks of blood on his hands and face.

“Whoever did this wanted these people to die,” he added, tearing open a box of syringes.

We don’t know for sure who made the bullets that were fired into heads of these demonstrators. But we do know that, just over a year ago, Britain licensed the sale of £160,000 worth of bullets and body armour to Yemen’s rulers. We also know that Saudi Arabia’s British-supplied Tornado fighter-bombers were killing scores of civilians in the north of the country even before the current wave of unrest hit the Arab nation. – Read more.

At home and abroad, the right have no plan for growth – Left Foot Forward
By Wayne David MP and Glenis Willmott MEP

Yesterday David Cameron patted George Osborne on the back as, yet again, he downgraded the growth forecasts for the British economy. Today Mr Cameron is in Brussels to export Mr Osborne’s policies of deep economic retrenchment to our European neighbours.

At the European Union Summit all eyes will be on possible differences between European Leaders over Libya, and because of this there could well be little reportage of the hugely significant “economic governance package” and the proposed EU Treaty change.

This is extremely worrying as there is a real danger that these measures will do little to put Europe on the road to a strong economic recovery and do little to create the jobs which are badly needed. Mr Cameron is set to sign up to a treaty change that will enable a permanent bail-out mechanism for eurozone countries. – 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.