At The Heart Of Almost Everything
This morning The Daily Telegraph reported that Britain’s last train making company, Bombardier had announced plans to make 1,400 jobs cuts.
The decision to shed these workers was made after the Government awarded a lucrative contract to German company, Siemens, for the construction of 1,200 new carriages for the £6bn upgrade to the Thameslink route.
The Railway’s Minister, Theresa Villiers, said the bid by Siemens, which will build the new carriages in Germany, represented the “best value for money for taxpayers” and stressed that the contract would create up to 2,000 new British jobs.
This is particularly interesting in light of the comments Ms Villiers made when in opposition during the previous Parliament. Well, I say ‘opposition’, but then there never was very much actual opposing of the Brown Government’s policies by the Conservatives. Indeed, sometimes I wonder whether we even had a change of Government at all. Most of the guff the Government spouts these days could just as easily have been announced by a Labour Minister.
Richard North drills home the duplicity of Government Ministers who say one thing in ‘opposition’ and another in Government:
How very different this was two years ago when our Theresa was outraged by the government’s decision to award a £7.5 billion contract to replace ageing high-speed trains on the Great Western and East Coast main lines.
Bombardier also lost out on that one, that time to a consortium led by the Japanese firm Hitachi, called Agility Trains, which included John Laing and Barclays Bank.
Then as now, the government said the contract would “create and safeguard” UK jobs, claiming 12,500 would benefit. But the then Shadow Transport Minister, who just happened to be Theresa Villiers, dismissed this as “typical spin” from the Government.
“This announcement raises further questions about Gordon Brown’s claims about British jobs for British workers. Geoff Hoon needs to stop the spin and tell the UK’s hard pressed train manufacturing industry the real truth about his decision on replacing intercity trains,” she stormed.
Then, however, the fair Villiers did not have to confront the “real truth” – the realities of the EU’s procurement directives, which prevent British firms being favoured, even if it is more economic in the longer term.
Gosh, now that was a surprise, wasn’t it? As we’ve learnt by now, at the heart of almost every political problem in this country lies the European Union. Such is the degree to which our sovereignty has been diminished that our own Government is incapable of deciding which companies may be awarded state contracts.
This point was backed up by Roger Helmer MEP in his latest email newsletter, who recounts a meeting he recently had with Ms Villiers:
Emma McClarkin raised the important and vexed issue of the rolling stock order that went to Siemens in Germany, not to Bombardier in Derby… Theresa well understood the concern, and the local anger in Derby, but said that the Government after much thought and careful analysis had come to the conclusion that under EU procurement rules, they had no option but to choose Siemens. This leaves outstanding the question why similar French and German orders always seem to go to national suppliers.
The British economy finds itself in a complete mess at the moment, and is slowly sinking into the fiscal abyss along with Greece, Spain, Portugal and the like. The addition of a further 1,400 people to the employment queue is hardly a promising sign of things to come. Tell me again, why are we still a member of the European Union?
