Ed’s inbox – May 27th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

It’s time to deliver what half a million marched for: Plan B – Left Foot Forward
By Daisy Blacklock

Where is the alternative that prompted half a million people to take to the streets of London on March 26th. Yesterday marked a whole two months since the public marched against the staggering £81 billion-worth of spending cuts deemed necessary by the coalition for ‘rebalancing the economy’. Yet despite the dynamism and diversity of the anti-cuts movement, the very word ‘alternative’ is in danger of becoming discredited.

It is this danger that saw Neal Lawson, chair of the political pressure group, Compass, and Left Foot Forward contributor Howard Reed, director of Landman Economics, put forward an outline for a ‘Plan B’ at the New Political Economy Network (NPEN) this week. – Read more.

‘No pay rises for millions until 2015′ – Liberal Conspiracy
By Sunny Hundal

Living standards for over 11 million workers on low and middle incomes in the UK are unlikely to improve even when the economy begins to grow again, a new report out today says.

Today the Resolution Foundation launches the first report for the Commission on Living Standards, ‘Growth without gain?: The faltering living standards of people on low-to-middle incomes’.

The report reveals that average pay is set to be no higher in 2015 than in 2001.

James Plunkett, the report’s author, says: – Read more.

Tory MP thinks foreign aid is “stark raving mad” … but blacking up isn’t – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

Despite the UK leading the world in the effectiveness of its aid programmes, Tory MP Philip Davies is all over the Daily Mail and Express today claiming that we are a “soft touch” on assistance given to poor countries:

“Once again we’re the soft touch of the international community … We must be stark raving mad.” – Read more.

1980s resistance won’t save our services from cuts – ProgLoc
By Theo Blackwell

Labour councillors elected in May 2010 and 2011 are in the unenviable position of being pushed in two opposing directions at once. Elected to resist cuts, yet we have to implement them. Moreover, the sheer length of the Coalition’s economic cuts programme – six years, more than one full term of local government – also means that we also have to develop new plans within this electoral cycle, risking the appearance of political ownership of the Government’s squeeze on services. – Read more.

Who’s hue in tankworld – Progress
By Jessica Asato

It’s been a year since Labour’s defeat in the general election and it looks like the big beasts of progressive wonk world are settling into life in opposition. Nick Pearce at ippr is busy building an impressive empire of Labour’s brightest and best.

After nabbing Graeme Cooke fresh from David Miliband’s campaign and Will Straw from Left Foot Forward, we hear that Richard Darlington has jumped ship from Demos and joined ippr as its new head of news. Darlington was a special adviser to Ruth Kelly and previously worked for the TUC. Matt Cavanagh, a former adviser in the Downing Street policy unit, has also recently been recruited alongside Marc Stears, an Oxford political thinker and a close friend of Ed Miliband and Maurice Glasman, the brains behind blue Labour. – 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.