Last week the Druid exposed how our sitting MP, Labour's Albert Owen, has made false claims on his latest election leaflets about the amount of funding which RAF Valley is receiving. It appears that the local press has picked up on my post as today's Daily Post contains this extract:
"The Defence secretary said the Government has made a £635m commitment to RAF Valley by backing it to lead fighter jet training.
But this £635m figure has come under scrutiny with claims it is misleading as the contract to Ascent is for the entire UK Military Flying Training System, which is not solely based at Valley.
But Mr Owen, who used the figure on election leaflets, said: “This is the only figure available and Valley will have the main tranche of that funding. I am comfortable with using this figure.”In stating that he is using the £635 million figure because it is the "only figure available", Albert Owen is in effect tacitly acknowledging that is is incorrect. Furthermore the Ministry of Defence press release announcing this deal was dated 3rd June 2008 - almost two years ago. Surely over the space of two years Albert Owen could have been able to obtain from the MoD a more accurate figure on how much of the £635 million would actually be spent at RAF Valley? He's a member of the ruling Labour government after all.
In conclusion what Albert Owen is effectively saying is: "I am comfortable with lying to Anglesey residents in order to get re-elected”.
11 comments:
Also the provision of the Search and Rescue service does not form part of the Ascent contract.
The Soteria Consortium has been chosen to provide a harmonised Search and Rescue Helicopter (SAR-H) service for the UK.
Did Team Leader Albert Owen secure this investment also, chocks away?
Druid,
It is interesting that pages like this on major economic issues and the various utterances, empty boasts and expected election-time attention-seeking of our MP, AM, and would-be MPs, command so little response by the Anglesey public....this page so far has attracted only 1 comment.
Compare it with the Durkin press release and the sheer venom of IACC that that has attracted (80 comments thus far)....does this not tell us something ??
Anon - strangely enough I was just thinking the same thing. Perhaps Anglesey voters aren't engaged in the election campaign yet? Or perhaps they anyway expect our elected representatives to lie?
I think the answer is that they are too parochial to appreciate the bigger picture.
Not that our particular local government is not a substantive issue in itself of course !
Why do all these training contracts have to be a public-private 'partnership' (i.e., where one partner gets a whole lot more out of the deal than the other)?
What's been so wrong with our nation's military training that needs hundreds of millions thrown at a private (american) purveyor of weapons and 'systems'? Jeez, during WW2, women who'd never done anything other than mop a floor were plucked into the national effort and flew monstrous planes called Spitfires to and fro across the country with only a couple of hours' instruction.
Too many spinners, too many slick purveyors of lies and too many pointless politicians happy to throw our money down the pan.
Maybe the lack of comment is also due to the story being a repeat of one earlier in the week?
Or maybe it is parochialism. Plaid could be discounted for that reason. Labour are already in and making a pig's ear of things. The Conservative hasn't got a hope of getting elected (although his party might) and the Lib Dem candidate can't be taken seriously.
We have to try and decide who is the least hopeless of the bunch.
Regarding the council, the only thing to do is have the whole thing run by the Scots.
Albert Owen is the only candidate that's knocked my door.
Unfortunately I was out, but he met my partner and shook my babies hand. All I can say is at least he can hold his head up high knowing he never abused his position.
Lug
Anon 10:48 - true, it is a repeat of last week's post - but has moved on to Albert's brazenness when caught out using false figures. Nothing new there either I suppose!
The shameless bare-faced lie with no comebacks is the legacy of Tony Blair, I think.
I doubt very much he had any influence on the spending decision, which is where I feel he is lying.
By 'he' I mean AO.
Anon 15.42 - that is precisely correct. AO is claiming credit for something over which he had no influence. And on top of that he is then brazenly lying about how much investment will come to Anglesey.
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