BAE profits “artificial”
Vince Cable, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, has criticised BAE’s £1.2 billion profits as “utterly artificial”.
“The company’s profits depend on major, UK government-supported, export contracts around which there are unresolved allegations of corrupt commission payouts and pending prosecutions, or on favoured contracts for government procurement.”
Vince lead the recent Liberal Democrat opposition debate in the House of Commons, where he criticised the ending of the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the Al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia. He went on to criticise the Government’s closeness to BAE:
“The government itself is hopelessly compromised by mutual backscratching with the company, over both domestic contracts and the defence sales sector.
“Despite BAE’s poor record of cost overruns and delays on defence projects, the government continues to distort its policy priorities, pushing through the Trident renewal decision years ahead of a timetable dictated by security considerations, partly in order to meet BAE’s commercial priorities.”
Posted in BAE, Vince Cable |
March 5th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
My main comment is in symantics.
Corruption is “still” a crime!
Under this Government, it is certainly NOT considered to be a serious one. Cash for Honours, Free Holiday homes and flights, Goldsmith and Tony’s other Cronies seemingly concealing the fact that Blair and his gang are no better than Major and Camreon’s corrupt bunch.