Ed’s inbox – May 26th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

The “We’re Fine” Update – Benefit Scrounging Scum
By Kaliya Franklin

And from the whole of the Broken of Britain team I can say we are. Fine I mean. Ok so one of us has just got out of hospital from yet another infection, one of us has a ‘wonky’ heart, one of us has just moved and is suffering the increased health consequences, one of us has been diagnosed with dehydration, malnutrition and exhaustion, and another has a chest infection. But we’re spoonies so we’re all fine.

To us ‘fine’ can mean not knowing what day it is, what our own names are or where we are. It means the people who love us standing over us with fear and worry etched on their faces, begging us to slow down, to see a doctor. It means those who care saying with broken resignation in their voices ” but it shouldn’t be like this, this is Britain”. It means sitting back and watching us deteriorate until we have no strength left to argue otherwise, overruling and sending for the doctor. But still we’ll tell you that we’re fine if you ask.We’ll probably even claim we’re fit for work when we’re like this, to us it’s just a natural consequence of the risks we all knew we were taking with our health by campaigning but felt we have no other option but to continue anyway. – Read more.

Camerons showcase designer kitchen as household spending slumps – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

As new household spending figures hit a two-year low and families suffer the the worst income squeeze since the early 1980s, the Camerons have caught the national mood by, erm, showcasing their newly-fitted £25,000 second kitchen.

Both BBC Online and the Daily Mail today carry a photo of Samantha Cameron and Michelle Obama in the flat above Number 11 Downing Street. High-end household items are neatly arranged and framed with a wide shot calculated to exhibit the Cameron’s designer kitchen and pique the interest of lifestyle editors. – Read more.

Labour’s Norman Mailer is making the Tories edgy – New Statesman
By Dan Hodges

Glasman’s work with Blue Labour leads Conservative strategists to identify three “risk” areas.

It doesn’t even count as a tremor. More a vague and transient sense of unease. A tiny grey stain on David Cameron’s otherwise cloudless horizon. – Read more.

A worrying poll for Labour – The Staggers
By George Eaton

More people will blame Labour than the Tories if the economy gets worse.

On the surface, the latest Reuters/Ipsos MORI political monitor should gladden Labour souls. Last month’s poll put the Tories neck and neck with Labour on 40 per cent, but this month’s gives Ed Miliband’s party a 7-point lead. Labour is up 2 points to 42 per cent and the Tories are down 5 points to 35 per cent.

But dig deeper and some worrying trends emerge for the red team. Net satisfaction with Miliband, which stood at +1 last month, is back down to -8 (see graph below). More worryingly, just 17 per cent of voters believe the Labour leader is ready to be prime minister, compared to 69 per cent who believe he is not. – Read more.

Gordon Brown and the IMF job: a stitch-up? – Guardian Politics Blog
By Michael White

I detect no signs of anyone suddenly championing the former chancellor’s case in the corridors of power

Should Gordon Brown be considered, let alone picked, to run the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in succession to Dominique Strauss-Kahn?

When David Cameron gave him the thumbs down on the radio a few weeks ago, I thought the prime minister’s position was wholly defensible.

But plenty of serious people I respect think otherwise and have not hesitated to say so publicly – this at a time when they have little or nothing to gain from endorsing a man who has no political future in Britain and isn’t going to get the IMF plum either. – 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.