Ed’s inbox – March 4th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

How bleak is the future for the Lib Dems? – Sarah Hayward’s Blog
By Sarah Hayward

Clearly the Barnsley by-election result was very poor for the Lib Dems. Mark Ferguson over at LabourList has speculated what this result, on the back of a slew of council by-elections means. There’s a further dimension to this that could compound their problems. For too long the Lib Dems have been dependent on short money to sustain their national party infrastructure and have funded local campaigns through tithes on councillors. – Read more.

Congratulations to Dan! – Hopi Sen
By Hopi Sen

to Dan Jarvis, and his campaign team on a fabulous victory. Paul Nicholson and Tom Watson should be particulary pleased, I imagine. They should be. Being on a by-election campaign team is hard, unrelenting work, and while the victory rightly goes to the candidate, the campaign teams are the ones who make it possible.

On a personal note, I realised today that Dan Jarvis is almost the exact same age as I am. He has served our country as an army officer while I write a blog. It’s a bit of a humbling comparison. So Dan is someone I am delighted to have on the green benches. The party will be all the better for having him in parliament. All the best to him. – Read more.

Osborne claims international opinion is with him; this chart disagrees – Liberal Conspiracy
By Duncan Weldon

On Monday, at the launch event for the IPPR’s collection of essays on growth, Wendy Carlin gave an excellent talk on growth, policy and rebalancing.

One graph from that talk, which I hadn’t seen before, really speaks for itself – an international comparison of fiscal stimulus/tightening in 2011. – Read more.

After 2,450 jobs axed Tory says: “we haven’t got many issues people are concerned about” – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

In the biggest cuts in local government history, Birmingham City Council cut £212m from its budget on Tuesday. This will result in the loss of 2,450 jobs. But according to the Tory group Deputy Leader Philip Parkin no one cares!

“We haven’t got many issues which people out there are concerned about”. – Read more.

Birth control, language and honesty – An EastEnd Girl
By Hannah McFaull

Some of you may know that I’m about to embark on adventures new in the great state of California. In light of this, I’ve been looking at various medical insurance companies and one of the things that struck me is the difference in terminology used.

Specifically what I’m talking about is how contraception is referred to as birth control. And it got me thinking. Does calling the pill, ‘the pill’ actually diminish our understanding of it, making it sound innocuous? – 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.