Kevan Lim once (rightly) commented that the Conservatives on Suffolk Council were stricken with amnesia as to who, exactly, hired Andrea Hill.

It’s not only the Conservatives.  Labour thinks that the Customer Services Direct contract has absolutely nothing to do with them, as shown by the purple prose apologia from a Labour supporting writer in Ipswich Spy.

Naturally the tin foil hat brigade lapped it up with Ken Bates and Alasdair Ross retweeting the Labour defence.

The current administration have serious questions to answer on the conduct of this, and at least in Jeremy Pembroke’s case there is also the question of what role did he play during the contract negotiations and whether this blunted the opposition scrutiny that this deal clearly needed.  But this does not mean that the Liberal-Labour administration should be beyond scrutiny.

There is also a genuine concern about the general role that BT seems to play in local politics, in 2004 both the Labour leader of Suffolk Council and the MP very well disposed towards them due to personal links (not helped by an uncritical attitude from Jeremy Pembroke and supine Liberal Democrats).  This soft cross-party corporatism is never going to turn out well.  Why are Labour supporting websites such as Ipswich Spy so keen to shout down such concerns by alluding to a “right wing blogosphere”?

Your government can take all the credit for this mess.

Chris Mole outside another business Labour bankrupted. And the point is?

(Hat tip to Ipswich Spy)

According to the Telegraph, transport minister Sadiq Khan is in an ANOTHER election expenses row.  Again its about using office expenses to fund his struggling local party.

I bet that Chris Mole is thanking God (or Dawkins – this is Mole we’re talking about) that he is charismatically challenged, and his national profile matches this. Otherwise the press would be paying an interest.

Older, more obsessive readers may remember the name Public Impact. My charge during the expenses investigation was that Chris Mole had not feathered his own nest but that he had misused public money on keeping the Ipswich Labour machine running after a catastrophic decline in local activists and locally raised donations.

One of the key parts to this was a river of taxpayer’s money directed to Public Impact, a Reading based printing and design outfit that boasts (in a less public area of their website) that “We do not work for the other parties nor their MPs. We are staffed by Labour Party members and supporters.”

Well at last Public Impact have hit the headlines. This time it is an alleged fraud (the Police have been called in) committed by Sadiq Khan, Chris Mole’s close colleague in the Transport department. The money has been repaid and the Police have shown an interest. I personally think that Sadiq Khan was badly advised.

Who paid for your birthday cards, Chris?

Credit to Guido Fawkes for bringing the Sadiq Khan story to my notice.

So we said that Chris Mole’s website was a bit naff with its pledges being shown with the “Proof” watermark all through it, but now they’ve taken the page down.

Touchy! Perhaps its because he’s already broken one of these pledges.

The votedyson.com site is still not up. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats are waiting for after the election.

Chris Mole has put his pledges on line, but if you look carefully you’ll see that the word “Proof” is passed through the whole thing. Hint: That watermark means you shouldn’t publish it.

(No comment as to whether a taxpayer funded site should have Vote Mole literature all over it).

Meanwhile Mark Dyson STILL hasn’t got his votedyson.com website up, which shows everyone how seriously he’s taking Ipswich. So I guess I’ll be getting more hits for “Mark Dyson” and “Mark Dyson Ipswich”.

When I said that I always get a reaction when mentioning Mama Rudkin, that was a hint to, well, stop reacting. Hints aren’t always taken, apparently.

One reasonably funny one that came through was “How about an April Fool: Bryony Rudkin to move on to the Maidenhall Estate. Or… Chris Mole backs constituents against government’s plans.”

Well they made me laugh, but that probably says more about me. I think the first is more likely as long as we have a Brown government.

Anyway Ipswich Spy have been going for the prize of most obvious April Fool 2010. Clever concept, though I think their prediction that Labour will gain Whitton was far better, not least because I’m the only one who spotted it.

I know I’m getting obsessed with this, but the cosy sweetheart deals between Labour politicians has harmed Ipswich and it’s harming the country. So here are two freedom of Information requests that I’ve lodged:

1. Meetings and correspondence between Christopher Mole and National Express
2. Correspondence or meetings between the Department for Transport and Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP

Seventeen and a half minutes into this interview on BBC Suffolk Gordon Brown commends Chris Mole

Councillor Alasdair Ross (this time on the record) says he is “thrilled this man is our Prime Minister”.

There are quite a few Tories who are thrilled that Gordon Brown is your leader as well.

Chris Mole and Andy Burnham lay into Ben Gummer by saying that the only way he can be serious about the health service is by backing Labour’s plans.  All very partisan and stirring.

But there’s not a mention about Ipswich hospital and its status as something more than a district general hospital, which means one of:

1) Chris Mole doesn’t see the Hospital’s status as important to our health – but doesn’t really want another debate on it

2) It would be just rude to mention Ipswich hospital to Andy Burnham, a man who’s been degrading the hospital fairly systematically

3) The Hospital just clear slipped Mr Mole’s mind (after all Westminster’s hospitals are pretty nice)

So Mr Mole, why did you have a big announcement on health and not address the big health issue in Ipswich, is our hospital going to be a bog standard District General Hospital in five year’s time?