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.
No related posts.
