Entries from June 2009 ↓

La Traviata is on in Christchurch Park tomorrow (Tuesday) starting at 6.30 (the main show starts at 7.00).  And it’s free.

Just a reminder that the Heart Debate is on today. Do you think that we deserve a heart service in Ipswich or do you think we should go to Cambridge if we have a heart attack?

7 PM, Endeavour House, 8 Russell Road.

Since the Route 66 bus service has been discontinued Wherstead Road has had to make do with village services going into Ipswich town center.  This has caused a number of problems:

• Infrequent services – one an hour if you’re lucky
• Unreliable services not keeping with timetables
• Few seats by the time the busses get to Wherstead Road
• More cars on the road
• No disabled access on the tiny busses

This has got to stop.  It may be hard to get money out of the government, especially as Chris Mole is now the minister for transport, but this can’t go on.

The BIG Health Debate
Conservatve spokesman Ben Gummer goes head to head with Chris Mole over the future of emergency cardiac services at Ipswich Hospital.

Chris Mole will be speaking in favour of heart attack victims in Bridge going to Norwich, Cambridge or Basildon.  Ben Gummer will be speaking in favour of heart attack victims going to Ipswich hospital.

Date & time: Sunday 28th June, 7pm – doors open from 6.30pm
Location: Endeavour House, 8 Russell Road, Ipswich IP1 2BX

Click here for a map.

This website covers the whole of Ipswich but is based on Old Stoke:

http://www.ipswich2006.com/

It has done an immense job of putting old photographs from the Stoke Park area.  It is definately worth browsing, but be warned, it is addictive.

It’s not only the £500 a month Chris Mole gives to the Ipswich Labour Partythat rankles it’s the small little indignities.

Looking at one example of the thousands we pay to the Ipswich Labour Party:

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/chris-mole/Chris_Mole_0708_IEP.pdf#page=[115]

…we see another line (you may have to go to page 115 manually, depending on your browser) :

Insurance: 1/3 of CIS bill – fire, theft etc     £128.33

(CIS is now Co-Operative Insurance , tied to the Labour allies, the Co-Operative party)

Now the strange thing about this is that his office in Silent Street does not just contain the presumably larger offices of the Ipswich Labour Party (they quite reasonably don’t release their floor plans) but it also contains the premises of the Ipswich Labour club.

Are we the taxpayers really paying a third of the insurance costs of a premises that contains a private club selling alcohol?  Not only does this take a massive part of the Labour complex in Silent Street but it also is a far riskier proposition than a first floor office that is rarely open at night.  As the invoice merely says it’s a third share, and does not contain anything from the insurance company, it’s not clear.  If it is covering the Labour club then this is a clear example of cross subsidy.

Of course this expense would not exist at all if Chris Mole were to run his council office from Ipswich Borough Council.

Bridge Ward doesn’t have a patron saint, but if we did it would be Saint Ethelreda or as Æthelthryth, whose feast day is today.  A royal princess, protege of the superstar Saxon bishop Saint Wilfrid and founder of the abbey at Ely (which became Ely Cathedral), her link to our side of Ipswich stems from the fact that from Saxon time Old Stoke belonged to and was built up by the Abbey at Ely.  St. Mary Stoke, or at least the bit that wasn’t built in the Nineteenth Century, was built by the same abbey.

The church that stood in Wherstead Road was dedicated to Saint Ethelreda, and Saint Mary at Stoke still displays a banner for her.

So happy Saint’s day one and all.

I said that there where some interesting items on Chris Mole’s expenses.  One of the themes (possibly the theme) of Chris Mole’s expense claims has been the way in which he cross subsidises the Labour Party at a number of different levels.  In effect it means we have state funding of political parties, or more accurately of the Labour Party, in Ipswich.

The most blatant way in which this was done was the payments to the Ipswich Labour Party of £500 per month for use of a room in the Labour Party offices.*  This is going to be the equivalent of the third of the salary of a full time election agent (who also happens to have a council seat and so a nice swag of expenses).  This gives Labour a massive advantage in a marginal seat where none of the other parties can afford this.

So why can’t Chris Mole borrow an office in the Ipswich council building, like David Blunkett does in Sheffield?  As well as being cheaper for the taxpayer he will be in far closer contact with council officials, maintain a non partisan presence and be able to use the receptionist and switchboard services that the council has.  Of course you won’t be able to subsidise your party political machine, but that’s hardly the point of taxes, is it Mr Mole?

*  To see one example of this go to the 2008 incidental expenses entry:

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/chris-mole/Chris_Mole_0708_IEP.pdf#page=[115]

You may have to go to page 115 manually, depending on your browser. 

There you will see £3000 rent.  This is for six months, so you can divide this by six to get £500 per month. 

if you are interested then here are the published expenses for Chris Mole (here are the ones on his site).  I’m going through the expenses now and although Chris Mole has been claiming that he is “underspending” there are some very interesting claims in there.

I will be going through these over the next few days.  The Evening Star and the East Anglian Daily Times have done some work and focussed on the cost of his home and some of the expensive tastes (such as £70 headphones and £1000 TVs), but there seem to be a couple of very interesting stories hidden in this which don’t seem to have been touched.  More to follow…

The Steamboat tavern will be hosting the launch of Evening Star’s Lovemusic24 website.  There will be a  number of acts starting at 4pm.

It’s excellent to see that the Steamboat tavern is getting the recognition that it deserves for the amount of work it has done for the Ipswich music scene.