Ed’s inbox – June 6th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Much obliged, m’lord Ashcroft – Labour Uncut
By Rob Marchant

On discovering, via Tim Montgomerie’s Saturday piece, that Michael Ashcroft has commissioned a report into the future of the Labour party, one’s immediate reaction is that it was exceptionally kind of him. After all, as Montgomerie points out, the party is not exactly awash with cash at the moment to do its own polling. Really a very public-spirited action by the noble Lord.

All right, perhaps Ashcroft is not really bankrolling a report for our benefit. It is of great political value to the Tories to show Labour to be out of touch and polling poorly. But you know what the smart thing for us to do would be? It would be to read it very carefully anyway. And the article is a good starting point. It is uncomfortable reading, naturally, but it is always a position of strength to listen to adverse criticism, especially when it’s based on the opinion of ordinary people. And it is always a position of weakness to ignore it. – Read more.

Simon Hughes caught out saying one thing but voting for another (again) – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

Last week, Scrapbook exposed Simon Hughes for claiming inconvenient votes on secure tenancies did not occur. We can now bring you yet another example of the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader saying one thing but doing another.

In a debate on the Localism Bill, Hughes said communities should be empowered to restrain the expansion of betting shops on high streets:

“It is really important that the community will be able to say, ‘We don’t want that parade to end up all off licences or betting shops. We want there to be a greengrocer, a fishmonger or a baker.'”

Hughes then made his support clear by, erm, voting against himself. – Read more.

Lib Dems beating Labour by three to one on fundraising – Political Betting
By Mike Smithson

Thanks to Jim Packard and Elizabeth Rigby in the FT for spotting this – but according to the latest party fundraising data from the Electoral Commission for the six months to March 31st the Lib Dems are out-fundraising Labour by three to one from individual and corporate donors. – Read more.

The madness of more of the same – Left Foot Forward
By Michael Burke

There is a strange feature of the current debate about the economic and fiscal crisis. The gravest global economic crisis since the 1930s was clearly a crisis of the private sector – yet it is the public sector which is getting the blame and must be ‘reformed’, that is, cut.

The latest to enter the fray is the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) which correctly argues that the British economy has plummeted down international league tables of competitiveness. But the solution offered (pdf) for this malaise is lower taxes and deregulation, exactly the same policy mix that helped foster the conditions for the crisis. – Read more.

Apparently, James Purnell and Hazel Blears are Blue Labour’s leaders – Liberal Conspiracy
By Don Paskini

Lord Maurice Glasman has had another go at explaining Blue Labour, to an Italian audience.

His analysis and discussion of the problems facing the Italian Left are very interesting. But the bits of relevance to British politics are more troubling:

the left has become progressive, academic and middle class, and any time spent with people like that would lead you to know that they are not serious and deep thinkers or political strategists. They have too many principles for that. Many are deeply secular with no awareness of sin and the power they have, and the humiliating way they talk to people.

Sounds bad! So who should we listen to instead? – 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.