Ed’s inbox – May 9th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Jobcentres on Suicide Alert – Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
By Sue Marsh

After a week of welcome distraction provided by the local elections, it’s with a heavy heart that I return to the car-crash-horror of sickness and disability benefit reform.

The Guardian today, are running a story claiming that jobcentre staff have been issued with 6-point guidelines on how to deal with suicide threats as the sickness and disability benefit squeeze continues to be rolled out across the country. – Read more.

Treasury minister’s expense claim for 3 pence mortgage interest – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

While the IPSA expenses claims website went live last December, it seems the media may have missed the story of MPs’ miniscule submissions that cost more to process than is paid out. Official records detail requests for reimbursement of tiny figures that put that put Jacqui Smith’s infamous 88p bath plug in the shade:

– Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke put in a claim in for 3p of mortgage interest
– Tim Yeo claimed 4p on council tax
– Ian Swales was reimbursed 8p for a “paper purchase”
– Menzies Campbell claimed 12p for “telephone usage” – Read more.

Scottish Labour needs deep-rooted reform – Left Foot Forward
By Ed Jacobs

The SNP’s, and more particularly Alex Salmond’s, victory in Scotland was a political master class, leaving many north of the border and across the UK in a sense of awe.

Alex SalmondAs Dr Neil McGarvey of Strathclyde University concluded before election day:

“Alex Salmond is a top politician with presence and status. He is obviously an electoral asset.”

And so he proved to be as under an electoral system designed, as Channel 4 News explained; “to prevent any party from achieving an overall majority” the SNP managed just that, defying all the odds. – Read more.

The Labour and Unionist party – Labour Uncut
By Michael Dugher MP

On Friday afternoon I was sat in traffic on the M1, driving down from Barnsley to the elections count in Leicester. The news broke at about three o’clock that Labour had picked up five seats in Ipswich – including three from the Tories – to take control of the council. It was in Ipswich that Labour’s Chris Mole had been defeated in the general election last year, giving the Conservatives the seat for the first time in nearly 20 years. Despite some very good results for Labour across the country, particularly in the big northern cities and towns, as well as in battleground contests in the midlands and in the south of England, the news on the car radio was bad. We had been heavily defeated in the Scottish parliament elections. Labour had even lost Kirkcaldy, in Gordon Brown’s own backyard, a result that meant Alex Salmond was on course to a majority at Holyrood. The “story” on Friday afternoon was already moving on to include interviews with talking heads about what the SNP win meant, what the constitutional ramifications were, and when the referendum on Scottish independence might be held. – Read more.

A reply to Policy Exchange: are public workers really that better off? – Liberal Conspiracy
By Nicola Smith

Today’s Telegraph led with the claim that ‘workers are 40% better off in public sector’.

The claim that public sector wages are ‘out of control’ is based on this research from Policy Exchange.

But in February the IFS concluded (in research which Policy Exchange have referenced, and therefore presumably read) that the gap was 6%. So who is right?

Even the IFS said there were methodological reasons which limited the validity of this estimate (such as the impossibility of controlling for gender discrimination in the private sector and the difficulty of taking into account actual ability rather than proxy measures for productivity) and that:

“Before the financial crisis, public sector employees were, on average, paid at levels roughly in line with their private sector counterparts once observed differences in skill composition were taken into account.”

So, have Policy Exchange managed to improve on the IFS’s methodology?

A brief review of their report suggests that they have 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.