OK, I’m biased, so I asked a few other people what they thought. Here’s what was said:

Tim Glover (Green)

Pros:
Engaging personality
Was prepared to deal with the issues rather than simply laugh them down

Cons:
Seemed to be on drugs
Advocated a massive default and inflation that didn’t work too well when tried in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe would vote for him.

Chris Streatfield (UKIP)

Pros:
Seemed to shape the debate far more than the other minor candidates (including the Lib Dem)
Wanted us all to remember Europe – and he did this again and again, and again

Cons:
Charisma bypass – at least in front of a large audience
Went on and on about Europe – although that was his game plan it became dull

Mark Dyson (Liberal Democrat)

Pro:
Good TV voice

Cons:
Knew nothing about the area
Mentioned “Vince Cable” 27 times in the debate
Talked about replacing capitalism – I’m not sure that this is national Lib Dem policy

Sally Wainman (Save Broomhill Pool – walk on part)

Pro:
A great single issue campaigner

Con:
Only a single issue campaigner

Ben Gummer (Conservative)

Pro:
By far the sharpest of the performers (but we knew that any way)
Landed some sharp blows on Mole

Cons:
Sore throat
Seemed to treat UKIP as a bigger threat than Labour
Overly dismissive on climate change and anything to do with Europe along with Dyson and Mole, but I didn’t expect better of those two

Chris Mole

Pro:
Turned up on a bike
Best joke of the night, “I’ve heard Vince Cable speak, and there’s no superman shirt”

Con:
Really odd delivery – monotone and then stressing the most irrelevant words
Only seemed to spout government talking points, and then not very well
Looked bored whenever he wasn’t speaking, usually looking up at the ceiling

I spoke to a number of people, both Conservative and Catholic (it’s next to St Pancras). Among the Conserviatives there was a general satisfaction with the debate. I spoke to a Lib Dem who was seething at his “parachuted” candidate (does anyone know any more on this?). Among the Catholics there were a lot of people who were rather disappointed in the moderation which seemed to have skewed the questions away from abortion and end of life issues, unusual for a church based event and very unecumenical as these issues are exercising a lot of traditionally Labour voting Catholics.

The poll on Suffolk University on Chris Mole’s taxpayer funded overpriced website has this option:

Now I didn’t have Chris Mole’s advantage of an expensive education in Dulwich College, but I think I can spell nuisance right – and hopefully the students can before they get to Suffolk College, but with the recent education changes from Ed Balls I’m not so sure.

Chris Mole has put out a hard hitting statement about the budget:

“Ben Gummer must say how they would meet the challenge that we have set in this Budget. How much would the Tories cut from spending in 2010/11? Ben Gummer won’t say”

Strong stuff. And great minds think alike, don’t they:

“George Osborne must say how they would meet the challenge that we have set in this Budget. How much would the Tories cut from spending in 2010/11? George Osborne won’t say.”

The Labour minister Ian Austin sounds very similar to Chris Mole.

How much original thinking will Chris Mole do for his constituency in 2010/11? Chris Mole won’t say.

Edit:
Ann McKechin in Glasgow North also sounds eerily similar
As does Charlotte MacKenzie in Truro and Falmouth

Due to the attempted denial of service attack recently I’ve been a bit more jumpy about who’s visiting my site and that means I’m examining a good deal of IPs that show suspicious behaviour.  I’m starting to get a better idea of who reads this site (and there are a surprising number).

One that’s come on today is from the IP address 194.60.38.10 which belongs to the Houses of Parliament.  Which is nice, but I thought it would be a good little service to publish what they read.  Remember a lot of this will be from Chris Mole’s office but some of it will be other offices, especially those that came from Google.  There are probably other IP addresses registered to Parliament who read this site, so I’ve not got anything like the full picture.  There’s no real way of telling for sure, although the ones that tend to read about Ipswich Labour Party’s fund raising and campaigning have a fairly rare marker on their browser.  It’s backwards in time as the later stuff is the more interesting:

Today (10th March) there was a direct  hit on my site looking at the article about the Ipswich Labour Party fund raising / doorstep gambling operation as well as a quick look to see how my comments were doing (thanks guys, I didn’t know you cared).

Yesterday (9th March) the rare browser was looking at loads of things on the site, a bit about John Major’s speech but also about how the taxpayer funds the Ipswich Labour Party more than its members do and for some reason something about last year’s Lark in the Park.  On the 8th there was another trawl looking around the status of my comments section (you just need to say hello Chris) and about John Major’s speech.

Apart from a quick peek on the 4th March the previous visit was on 26th Feb.  There were three quick visits to the homepage on 26th Feb, one of them referred from Ipswich Spy.  The 24th and 25th of Feb also saw a lot of visits to my home page.  What were they worried about?

On the 23rd of March there was a bit of a rummidge around the site which started from a referral from Ipswich Spy (they like Ipswich Spy!) looking for information on Ben Gummer, Nick Herbert and Chris Mole’s expenses.

Chris Mole’s unwillingness to advertise Gordon Brown’s visit was read a few times on the 22nd.

On the 18th we only got one visitor looking for Sophie Stanbrook on Google.  I get in trouble when I speculate why people look for Sophie Stanbrook and not Ben Gummer, so I won’t.  On the 17th we had a visitor who came to read what one three year old on Maidenhall thought of Gordon Brown.

On the 13th Feb (a Saturday) there was a sole Parliamentary visit reading about Nick Herbert’s visit to Bridge, the same day it was posted.  On the 11th, there was a Google query on “Noise Action Group Ipswich”.  Was that Mr Herbert’s researcher?

The only activity in January was on the 27th when there was a little flurry of activity looking for information on Chris Mole his expenses and his stint as Transport under-under-secretary, including the evidence of divine displeasure when he was appointed transport secretary.  This is probably the first time that Chris Mole’s office looked at the site.

On the 10th of December last year we had a Parliamentary Googler looking ups some information on the Labour communications allowances beneficiaries Public Impact.  On the 2nd of December there was someone looking for information on John Cook, who had been selected for Norwich North a couple of days earlier.  Nothing in November.

On the 6th  October there was a Googler looking for “chris mole mp+railways+labour party”.  The statistics were put in on the 12th June so this was the first hit from this IP address.

So the Parliamentary interest in the Ipswich political blog scene is increasing, probably as a result of Ipswich Spy’s appearance.  Recently there has been far less Google traffic as a proportion of the hits I’ve got from this source, which as well as the increase in traffic shows that there’s more interest.

So if you want to get noticed, now’s the time to start a blog.

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?

A pioneering agreement in Oxford may be able to offer hope to people on Wherstead Road.  Wherstead Road is plagued by sporadic bus services, which would be far more tolerable if they were properly spaced out.  Under typically stupid European Union rules this cannot be changed because there are a number of different operators on the route they cannot get together to redraw the timetable to space out their bus times, the authorities prefering that they bunched up their services to make them “competitive”.  Why Europe needs to get involved in bus services that don’t even cross a county border, let alone an international border, is typically left unexplained.

This has meant that there is an almost two hour gap between buses in the evening on the route out of the town centre, and this starts almost exactly when the first commuter train comes in from London.  Thanks Brussels. 

Oxford has moved to stop their version of this needless, mandated competitive inefficiency by getting an agreement between the bus operating companies.  Hopefully we won’t have some European under-secretary for buses deciding that this won’t work.

In fact the minister who could decide on this would be Chris Mole.  I know that he doesn’t keep an eye on local media any more, but a couple of his tax paid staff do (even this humble site), so perhaps they can pass on the message that if he blocks the Oxford deal it will play badly on the Wherstead Road.  We’ll make sure of it.

So David Wilshre, the rather unpleasant Tory MP has been thrown out of Parliament because he paid money to a company controlled by him.  (Yes, I know he’s the same party as me, but it’s about theft not party identity)

(Photo courtesy of Guido Fawkes).

Oddly this issue was about the misuse of constituency office allowances and not about second home allowances, so it’s not covered by all the letters that MPs are getting.  This set of abuse is going to be examined later by Sir Thomas Legg.

So which MP do we know who has diverted public money intended for his constituency office to an otherwise cash-strapped Ipswich Labour Party essentially controlled by him?  Why it’s no other than our own Chris Mole.

I won’t hold my breath, Mole’s not a critic.  Unlike the Norwich North MP Iain Gibson, Chris Mole is a pliant member who won’t raise a peep against his party leadership, even when the most important hospital in his constituency is being systematically run down.

The wages of sin are death.  The wages of ignoring your constituents are promotion.

Just finished the noise meeting which was quite productive.  There were about 150 people there.

Some of the highlights:

• No one from Southern Cement wanted to speak or identify themselves, which was expected.  No one from the Port of Ipswich did either, which was disappointing.
• There are plenty of people outside the Noise Action Group who are very angry.  If Southern Cement and Uniland think that these people won’t cause problems if they’re snubbed, then Associated British Ports after the animal rights protests will have a different idea.  Dialogue with the Noise Action Group will keep hot heads cool.
• It was nice of Chris Mole to turn up, but he gave a poor speech.
• Phil Smart gave a better speech than Chris Mole, and had the germ of a good idea with getting residents to talk to the port in general.
• There were lots of ideas for quietening the operation, some better than others.
• Nadia Cenci, who suffers from the noise, gave a great speech, asking not why, but how, to sue Southern Cement and Associated British Ports to close them down.  Again this is another worse alternative than dialogue.
• There are people miles away who hear this.  We knew that, but we found more.
• The dust is an emerging issue which is angering a lot of
• Council officers sounded well and truly peeved with Southern Cement’s refusal to talk to residents.  After all at times they were being abused because Southern Cement won’t talk.
• Only one person refused to give their contact details at the end of the meeting.

So Southern Cement, I know that you read this blog, and I know you want a way out.  It’s d-i-a-l-o-g-u-e .  It’s better than being shut down.

Apparently the BBC Look East programme today predicted that although Labour were in trouble in East Anglia, Chris Mole would hold on in Ipswich due to his “personal vote”.

Now I don’t doubt that the Labour machine in “fortress Ipswich” could withhold a national swing, they are well organised and active (and well looked after, if we’re honest).   However Chris Mole’s personal vote is negative.

On the doorstep, no matter where you are in Ipswich, Chris Mole is heartily disliked.  Sometimes I even defend him saying that people are being unrealistic about what an MP can do.  Some voters may be taking it a bit far, it’s true, but they are essentially right in that Mole’s no Jamie Cann and is certainly putting his career ahead of his constituents.

I don’t personally dislike him, but it must be obvious to the most loyal of Labour canvassers that they’re carrying him and he’s certainly no asset to them.

We now know that Chris Mole channels £500 a month to the Ipswich Labour Party for a service which the council ould do for free, but there is a smaller but still odd anomalies.

If we go back to the money 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 a line (you may have to go to page 115 manually, depending on your browser) :

Newspapers EADT/Evening Star Online editions       £195

Was the online access to the Evening Star used by any of the Labour staff in the building?  For example, Councillor John Cook the Labour Party agent (who us taxpayers don’t pay for, officially) is very, very fond of commenting on stories some political, some not.

If true it’s a tiny problem, but there really does not seem to be enough care for the seperation of the public and the party political from Mr Mole.