Ed’s inbox – June 9th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Is Blair the best man to give advice to Labour in 2011? – New Statesman
By Mehdi Hasan

Tony Blair is back in Britain to promote the paperback edition of his 2010 memoir, A Journey. The permatanned ex-premier has been doing the rounds of the television and radio studios, offering his views on the Arab Spring as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s guest-edit of the New Statesman.

He also offered this piece of advice to Ed Miliband, the current Labour leader. From the Times (£):

“What he will say is that a progressive party will never win unless it shows that is ‘in favour of the business community, in favour of entrepreneurs, of enterprise.” – Read more.

We need to diversify our funding base – Labour Uncut
By Peter Watt

We recently saw the publication by the electoral commission of the list of donations by all political parties in the first quarter of 2011 (Q1). The Labour party received £2,882,765 of which £2,507,372 was from trade unions. This means that almost 90% of Labour’s donations in Q1 came from affiliated trade unions. Now whichever way you cut that, it cannot be a good thing. There are two aspects that are specifically worthy of scrutiny. One is political and the other is financial.

Politically, it is a mixed picture. We share history, and over the years the trade unions have proved that they are more than fair weather friends. The affiliated trade unions are members of the party in their own right. Their membership (affiliation) fees mean that trade union members are in theory a constituency of millions of working people with a stake in the party. These members should act as a constant reminder of life in the real world. And, of course, their organisations and ours are enshrined in our constitution with ties at every level of the party. – Read more.

The Archbishop is right to speak out, and right on the substance – Alastair Campbell
By Alastair Campbell

As I know from my time in government, Archbishops can provoke and anger from time to time, but why shouldn’t they? They are people in important positions of moral and religious leadership, and part of their role must be to contribute to political and policy debate.
As a statement of fact, he is absolutely right to say the government is implementing policies nobody voted for. Now there is a political argument for that – the public could not make up it’s mind – but it is a statement of fact. The NHS provides the clearest of many examples where the government has used the existence of the coalition to bring in policies which were in neither manifesto and not in the coalition agreement. – Read more.

Government’s latest u-turn puts political goals ahead of effective jails – Left Foot Forward
By Frances Crook

The coalition government’s considered approach to the challenges in the justice system was welcomed by penal reformers, who considered this a once in a generation opportunity to deliver real change.

Plans designed to reduce the prison population by 3,000 men, women and children and make better use of effective community sentences were a necessary change in direction. But unfortunately the government has gone into reverse, putting political goals ahead of effective jails. – Read more.

How do you sleep at night, Chris Grayling? – Liberal Conspiracy
By Sue Marsh

Yesterday, the Conservative minister Chris Grayling told us that assessments used to determine whether or not someone is “fit for work” or not are “not money driven” – somehow ignoring the “target” of saving £1 billion from the sickness benefits bill.

And here’s Mr Grayling, during a recent DWP committee meeting, telling us that the decision to stop all ESA benefits entirely after one year – whether the person is then fully recovered or fit for work or not – was entirely based on cost cutting. – 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.