I like to look in my stats to see what people are interested about, so I was surprised to see the Google search for my name with Ipswich. Not another employer. So I then went to look at the IP address 91.109.140.140. They’d originally been searching for Public Impact, an outfit I’d been less than complimentary about in the past for their practice of siphoning off public money for Labour campaigns. They then looked at the about page, then looked for james bridge ward news, after that showing some interest in Chris Moles’ expenses. After that they did my name search and looked for pictures of me through Google.

Sorry Labour ladies, I’m happily married. You weird and deeply disturbing cyberstalkers.

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.

Chris Mole has a website, which is all very nice, and it’s a very good party political website.  However, and you’ve probably guessed it, who pays for it.  Well, I’ve got an expenses claim:

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/chris-mole/Chris_Mole_0506_IEP.pdf

That’s £2408.75 for a website.  That is as much as it looks.  For example, Public Impact, the rule breaking Labour campaigning group, will do a website for £1200.

So who is this “SS Double Design”?  I don’t want to make any second world war jokes, but, really.

An anonymous commenter (and they want to remain that way as they went to the trouble of using an anonymizer to make this web posting) has taken me to task for pointing out that Chris Mole was using Public Impact to send out party political propaganda using his taxpayer funded office expense account, against parliamentary rules.

I said at the end of the original post “He should pay back every penny that we the taxpayers paid to Public Impact.”

He did not break the rules on using the communicaton allowance, which is designed with the purpose of funding Labour MPs re-election campaigns.

So one year in four he’s kept to both the letter and spirit of bad rules.

However for three of the four years he’s systematically abused his allowances and should pay back every penny paid to Public Interest from his office allowances.

Public Impact, for who we the taxpayer pay more than £4,000 a year, are not a simple print shop.  They are a Labour Party operation, although they do not seem to have any above the counter links.  However they are clear on their (Labour facing) page as to what they are about:

We do not work for the other parties nor their MPs. We are staffed by Labour Party members and supporters.

In short, they are highly partisan and any public money going towards them will be expected to be going towards electing or re-electing Labour candidates.

So bad enough in a “communications” budget, but surely our MP would not misuse his expenses to get their services in an office budget?

Well not the last year, but the year before that?

Sure he did:

£1110.48 for 30,000 leaflets in 2006/07:

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/chris-mole/Chris_Mole_0607_IEP.pdf#=page[58]

£2,546.41 for 70,000 leaflets and 500 posters in 2005/06 (election year):

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/chris-mole/Chris_Mole_0506_IEP.pdf#=page[39]

£1,571.06 for 35,000 leaflets in 2004/5:

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/chris-mole/Chris_Mole_0405_IEP.pdf

£5,227.95 on literature over three years.  That makes up for a lot of lost Labour Party members and union subscriptions.

And here are the rules from the Green Book that is supposed to that claims to govern the Parliamentary allowances:

The AOE is an allowance designed to provide for facilities, equipment, supplies and services for Members and their staff.

It may only be used to meet the following costs:

• Accommodation for office or surgery use or for occasional meetings
• Equipment and supplies for the office or surgery
• Work commissioned and other services
• Certain travel costs not met out of travel expenditure

…….

The only area that the Public Impact propaganda could potentially claim to be calling under is for “Work commissioned and other services”, however even this is not open to interpretation:

• Maintenance services for hardware, software and equipment
• Interpreting and translation services
• Training for Members or staff
• Recruitment services
• Work that you would reasonably expect a member of your staff to undertake, for example, a piece of research

It is cut and dried, Chris Mole has used the taxpayer to pay for propaganda, against both the spirit and the letter of the rules.  He should pay back every penny that we the taxpayers paid to Public Impact.

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.