Ed’s inbox – July 6th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

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

Turn a Blind Eye – Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
By Sue Marsh

I’m sorry, but something has been troubling me. I usually avoid the subject, but now that I’m actually in the situation, and it’s personal to me, I feel I have a little more moral authority.

Just as planned by the government, my family now face a pretty dire financial situation, and I haven’t even lost my ESA (Employment Support Allowance or sickness benefit) yet. As I’ve warned many times, sick or disabled people are already much more likely to live in poverty, so there was precious little room to accommodate the squeeze that Osborne is convinced we need. – Read more.

Hour-by-hour, more and more advertisers desert News of the World – Left Foot Forward
By Claire French

An increasing number of companies have withdrawn their advertising from this Sunday’s News of the World (NotW) as more, potentially crippling accusations of illegal activity emerge. Ford led the way last night, saying they would use “alternative media within and outside News International Group”, instead of advertising in the NotW.

This lunchtime, the Co-operative Group tweeted that it had taken the decision to suspend all links with the newspaper, having previously signalled that its advertising would go ahead this weekend. – Read more.

Eric Pickles slams “foreign freebies” before his £12,000 junket to India – Political Scrapbook
By Political Scrapbook

Back in 2004, Eric Pickles slammed council chief executives for spending taxpayers’ money on expensive trips:

“At a time when pensioners are scrimping and saving to pay their council tax it is outrageous that councillors are going on foreign freebies. They should show some solidarity with taxpayers and pay towards these trips.”

But there seems to be one rule for local government and another for Pickles’ own department. Allister Hayman of the Local Government Chronicle reports that the secretary of state and two officials spent £12,552 on a four-day trip to India in April of this year. – Read more.

Tories block plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – THE HONEYBALL BUZZ
By Mary Honeyball

When David Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party, he promised that he would push the environment up to the top of the political agenda. He has stated time and again that climate change is an issue his party feels strongly about. He has also made it clear that the Coalition’s position is to support an increase from 20% to 30% of the EU’s targets for reducing C02 emissions.

Despite these assurances from their leader, 16 Tory MEPs yesterday voted in favour of an amendment which sought to water down the European Parliament’s commitment to a 30% target. Two further Tories abstained. – Read more.

Bombardier redundancies: does anybody care about Derby? – Left Futures
By David Osler

Thanks to my job as a business journalist, I can reel off facts and figures on topics from projected GDP growth in the Russian Federation to the outlook for tanker chartering rates. But I couldn’t tell you much about what they do in Derby these days. There’s no reason why I should know that, of course. But I had rather assumed the Treasury would be on the case, and factor wider considerations into government policy decisions.

Not so, according to the railway industry trade press. Lack of regional microeconomic data meant that nobody thought twice about what awarding a £3bn contract for 1,200 Thameslink carriages to Germany’s Siemens would mean for the East Midlands town. – Read more.