Ed’s inbox – June 24th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

It’s time to change how we operate – Labour Uncut
By Richard Costello

With the refounding Labour review closing today I feel that it is important for us to consider the real issues in our party. We will never win again unless we confront the elephants in the room and for me the major issue is the role of constituency Labour parties CLPs.

Too often, instead of empowering members, CLPs create the feeling of powerlessness and inferiority in our membership – discouraging involvement in our movement. As a party we talk about making the country more meritocratic, well why don’t we start by making the Labour movement a meritocracy. – Read more.

Goodbye, Melanie! – New Statesman
By Mehdi Hasan

Phillips leaves the Spectator as the complaints pile up.

Poor ol’ Melanie Phillips. In today’s Guardian, the Conservative Party chair Sayeeda Warsi goes on the offensive:

“I don’t read her, actually. I call her Mad Mel,” Lady Warsi says of Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips, who has denounced her as “stupid”.”

Last week, Phillips announced her departure from the Spectator, where she has been blogging for the past few years. – Read more.

The fake list: bogus names used by 10 Downing Street revealed – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

A cabinet minister, senior local government staff, councillors and other MPs were among those to have received letters from bogus Downing Street officials on the basis of “security”, Political Scrapbook can reveal. The full list of “computer generated” pseudonyms, introduced in 2005 after a civil servant was targeted by a member of the public at their home address, is published below.

The practice was originally exposed in May after MP Gerald Kaufman attempted to contact an Number 10 official from whom he had received a letter. When he rang to speak to “Mrs E Adams”, however, he was told that “she did not speak on the telephone” before staff eventually conceded that she, erm, did not actually exist. – Read more.

Ed Miliband and the paradox of party reform – The Staggers
By Rafael Behr

Ed Miliband’s proposal to scrap elections to the shadow cabinet raises some interesting questions about the challenges of opposition and political reform in general – interesting, that is, to people who are interested in that sort if thing. (Civilians with better things to think about on a sunny Friday in June, look away now.)

It is surely the right thing to do. Miliband needs to assert authority, not least because of the inelegant shape of his own electoral mandate. He wasn’t the first choice of a majority of Labour MPs or the members, but he is the leader as legitimately installed under the party’s (arcane) process. He doesn’t need a rolling load of ballots that are irrelevant to non-Labour voters, distract MPs and generate chatter about competing mandates. Hence resistance also to the idea of a directly elected party chair. He is the boss; he should appoint his team. – Read more.

Glasto, where the tax dodgers are named – Left Foot Forward
By Dominic Browne

Ed Balls called the current climate of government cuts “rock and roll” time for tax avoiders, so it’s fitting that U2 are performing at Glastonbury this week.

U2 on South Park Some might question their rock and roll credentials, but few dispute that in the name of lowering their tax bill, this band might well climb the highest mountain and run through fields (not a massively onerous task but apparently a test of devotion for them) to be where the money is. – Read more.