February 21st, 2010 — General Election
I owe an apology to
Chris Mole. When
Gordon Brown visited Ipswich I said that it goes without saying that a three year old has more sense than a Labour MP. However I was wrong. Chris Mole has had the same reaction as the three year old “Oh no. Hide.”
So was it the speeding, or the robust reaction from
Maidenhall Estate or just the fact that it was Gordon Brown? Its particularly brave after Gordon Brown came up to endorse The Mole.
Whatever it was, this rare flash of good sense means that there should be an apology. Sorry Mr Mole, you seem to have more sense than I credited you with, you’re doing your best to have nothing to do with Gordon Brown while still retaining the Labour nomination.
Chris Mole and Gordon Brown in happier times.
August 5th, 2009 — Chris Mole Expenses investigation
The website of Chris Mole was paid (at double the going rate) for by you and me, as taxpayers.
http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/chris-mole/Chris_Mole_0506_IEP.pdf
If you’re a Labour loyalist then this is a good deal, if you’re not then you’ve been robbed.
When one of the most prominent links on their website is to a scaremongering Labour website you can almost hear the refund cheque being written. The office expenses are not for party political activity after all.
You then get some of the frankly bizarre poll questions that make you wonder if the author hasn’t been hired from the Chinese Communist Party Department of Very Fair One Sided Poll Questions. Take this example:
“Do you agree that getting a university campus in Ipswich is a major triumph for the Labour Party in Ipswich”
How do you parody that question? Remeber that you, not the Labour Party paid for that.
From beyond parody to the screaming subtext, how about this poll question:
“Do you think that local Tories and Liberals were vindictive to sack Labour councillor Phil Smart from the chair of Ipswich Buses for revealing cuts plans”
Now what would the publicly funded Chris Mole website, Ipswich Buses and Councillor Phil Smart all have in common?
July 6th, 2009 — Chris Mole Expenses investigation, Uncategorized
One of the biggest cons introduced in recent years has been the MP’s “communication allowance”. It;s not really meant for us to communicate with them, but for them to communicate with us.
Only one has been published so far and I’ve put it into a spreadsheet that details Chris Mole’s communications allowance. It’s not pretty reading. Well it is £5,344.77 of our money.
There are three suppliers. The cheapest were Calver Press, a print shop around the corner from the Silent Street Labour office, who printed compliment slips and business cards, 2800 of them in total. So far so good.
The next most expensive “supplier” is the Suffolk Labour Party. Yes, this is as odd as it sounds. Why should a “communication allowance” be going to the local Labour Party? Well, you’ve guessed it. The monthly reports are essentially re-election material. There are 31,000 pieces of literature charged at £870.
The last piece of expenditure, a hefty £4,209.12 goes to an outfit called Public Impact Communications. Their website is a bit nondescript, although it is in Reading and no where near Ipswich and the fact that it does a lot of work for UNISON is a small clue to where they are coming from.
It is their operation Labourprint.co.uk, where their main business comes through. As they say on their local election page “We have been actively involved in supporting and helping Labour candidates get elected for many years.”
And we pay them more than £4,000 a year to produce 80,000 leaflets at just less than twice the cost per item that the Suffolk Labour Party charges. Does the Ipswich Labour Party also pay Public Impact and do they pay the same inflated rates that we the taxpayer do?
There’s more on Public Impact later.
