Ed’s inbox – May 20th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

The only test of opposition – Progress
By Paul Richards

The leader of the opposition gets a suite of offices in parliament, behind the speaker’s chair, close to the prime minister’s office, and yet a million miles away. It spreads over two floors, and contains a warren of offices which are all just too small. There’s a shadow cabinet room, with ‘Honor the Queen’ carved into the lintel.

Neil Kinnock covered the walls with trade union banners. Tony Blair refused to make it in any way homely or comfortable, on the grounds that he wouldn’t be in it for long. One way or another, that was always going to be true. – Read more.

Wikipedia edits from parliament airbrush Dorries sex abuse row – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

Nadine Dorries provoked a storm on Monday when she casually invoked the issue of child sexual abuse to shore up her chauvinist girls-only “just say no” proposals for sex education. It now appears someone using a parliamentary computer has edited Dorries’ entry on Wikipedia to airbrush the sorry affair from the record: – Read more.

It’s about to get worse and you want to stop talking about cuts? – Liberal Conspiracy
By Sunny Hundal

To almost no surprise, the world’s third-largest economy: Japan, has fallen off a cliff (-5.2% slump) and now in a “severe” recession. Meanwhile, there are growing protests in Spain over high unemployment and austerity measures, with more to come this weekend.

What are the chances of a quick global economic recovery? How about just in the UK? Don’t bet on it. So I’m perplexed whenever I read yet another article arguing Labour must think about how to deal with a popular George Osborne in 2015 when the UK economy is roaring again. In fact the opposite is the case: we have to start preparing for a long slump. – Read more.

Life after DSK? – The Staggers
By Jonathan Derbyshire

Sarkozy still lagging behind the other Socialist candidates for president.

It has been widely assumed that one of the main beneficiaries of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair is Nicolas Sarkozy. The man they call “DSK”, so the argument goes, was the only Socialist capable of beating the incumbent in next year’s French presidential election. Indeed, the leader in this week’s issue of the New Statesman makes the following observation:

Opinion polls consistently showed that he was the candidate with the best chance of denying Mr Sarkozy a second term in the Élysée Palace. But it is symptomatic of the crisis of the French left that many Socialists have already resigned themselves to defeat in 2012. A progressive party should never have allowed itself to become so dependent on one man. – Read more.

Why Obama will not be paying Boris’s congestion charge bill – Tory Troll
By Adam Bienkov

Boris Johnson will confront Barack Obama about unpaid congestion charges when he arrives in London, reports the BBC.

Now this is very strange considering that Boris has repeatedly surrendered London’s only argument for making the US embassy pay the charge, ie that it is a *charge* and not a tax.

If it is a charge then embassies have to pay it under international law. If it is a tax then they do not. – 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.