Ed’s inbox – April 25th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Grassroots Warrior – Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
By Sue Marsh

Now, before spoonies and sickies rush to tell me of, I have had a gloriously chilled Easter. I haven’t written a blog post, haven’t answered any last minute calls for radio interviews or freelance articles.

I have done no less than frolic. I have taken my children to make beautiful, magical, childhood dreams. Splashing in swimming pools and running through fountains that sparkle in the rare Easter sunshine.

I only had one job that was too urgent to leave.

3,500 “Vote Tactically, Vote Labour” leaflets were sulking in the boot of my car, mocking me. – Read more.

Libdems realise what happens when you lie down with Tories – Liberal Conspiracy
By Sunny Hundal

Nick Clegg is a bit angry with the Tories over social mobility. Chris Huhne is a bit angry with them over AV referendum lies.

This has led Jackie Ashley at the Guardian and Tim Montgomerie at ConHome to speculate there may be an early election. This is highly unlikely but it could have other consequences.

The reasons why there’s unlikely to be a GE soon are obvious. Neither the Tories nor Libdems want one: their poll ratings are low and the cuts will drive voters against them. – Read more.

Three kinds of leader in the age of the insurgent – Labour Uncut
By Kevin Meagher

Like bad luck, musketeers and Neopolitan ice cream, our political leaders come in threes. Consolidators, new brooms and insurgents; a trio of broad headings that sums up the different approaches to party leadership -Tory, Labour and Liberal alike.

First, we have consolidators. They are elected to lead divided parties, offering a familiar, reassuring presence, often at a moment of peril and self-doubt. They provide a small “c” conservative choice for parties turning in from the world. Michael Foot, Iain Duncan-Smith and Ming Campbell fall into this category. Their election is often a mark of intellectual defensiveness for their party, sometimes at the fag end of a period in office. Douglas-Home, Callaghan, and Gordon Brown also fit this bill. – Read more.

WikiLeaks and Guantánamo Bay – Michael Tomasky
By Michael Tomasky

The big story today in both of our countries is the new WikiLeaks tranche regarding treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The Guardian puts emphasis on the seemingly indefensible errors like the captive 89-year-old man and 14-year-old boy. The New York Times gives more prominent mention to the 200 or so cases in which high-risk detainees were nevertheless released.

There will be insufferable amounts of political posturing over all this in the coming days. The 200 were released between 2003 and 2009, according to NPR this morning, which, if you think about these things politically, means to you instantly: ah, both administrations. So who released more high-risk people, Bush or Obama? – Read more.

Why the LibDems could have no women MPs after the next election – Next Left
By Sunder Katwala

A General Election in 2011 is no longer unthinkable, argues Jackie Ashley in The Guardian. Few LibDems would re lish the prospect. But how many realise that, if such an election took place, they would face a serious risk of ending up with no women MPs at all?

Even if the election takes place on the Coalition’sschedule in 2015, it is quite likely that the LibDems will find themselves with a more male dominated party than their 1930s predecessors, when one out of ten Liberal MPs was a woman. The reasons why the LibDems are now likely to go backwards on gender, even if they recover some lost support in the polls, are reported in The Guardian by Allegra Stratton, based on Fabian Society and Fabian Women’s Network research by myself and Seema Malhotra. – 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.