Sunday, June 27, 2004
Labour hypocrisy
The Labour Party's hypocrisy and opportunism in Hodge Hill continues to take my breath away. Nicola Davies works as a middle-ranking employee for a mobile phone company and does not set the policies of her employer. There are many other ordinary, Labour voting employees of this and other mobile phone companies whose job involves erecting these masts and maintaining them. Yet, I can see no sign of legislation to enable them to exercise their conscience in relation to the siting of these masts and keep their jobs. Are Labour condemning these workers for their occupation? No, they are not.
The fact remains that the Labour Party in Government has created an atmosphere whereby mobile phone companies work in a largely free-market economy. In doing so they have encouraged them to seek to maximise their profits regardless of the ethics of their activity, whilst Labour Government Ministers continue to insist that mobile phone masts are safe (in stark contrast to the literature put out by the Labour Party in Hodge Hill). In fact Labour have sold new generation licences to mobile phone companies in return for billions of pounds in the full knowledge that the new technology will mean a tripling of phone masts and that the companies will be forced to seek unsuitable sites for them in an attempt to maximise market share and recover their outlay.
Furthermore, it is a Labour Government who has insisted on choosing the rather dodgy Tetra communication system above the safer Tetrapol version for the emergency forces. Tetra masts are considered by some to be far more dangerous than an ordinary mobile phone mast, yet they too are being erected in local communities under Government contract. If anybody's record on phone masts deserves scrutiny then it is Labour's.
Labour have also drawn attention to the fact that the Liberal Democrat campaign in Hodge Hill has set up shop in a former video rental outlet and they have used this fact to draw attention to Liberal Democrat policy on lowering the age of consent for those wishing to view pornography so that it comes into line with the age by which heterosexuals can legally have sex. In doing so they have failed to mention their own record on this issue. As Labour Watch point out it is Labour who have received donations from Richard Desmond, the publisher of the Express, Star and Spunk Loving Sluts.
The fact remains that the Labour Party in Government has created an atmosphere whereby mobile phone companies work in a largely free-market economy. In doing so they have encouraged them to seek to maximise their profits regardless of the ethics of their activity, whilst Labour Government Ministers continue to insist that mobile phone masts are safe (in stark contrast to the literature put out by the Labour Party in Hodge Hill). In fact Labour have sold new generation licences to mobile phone companies in return for billions of pounds in the full knowledge that the new technology will mean a tripling of phone masts and that the companies will be forced to seek unsuitable sites for them in an attempt to maximise market share and recover their outlay.
Furthermore, it is a Labour Government who has insisted on choosing the rather dodgy Tetra communication system above the safer Tetrapol version for the emergency forces. Tetra masts are considered by some to be far more dangerous than an ordinary mobile phone mast, yet they too are being erected in local communities under Government contract. If anybody's record on phone masts deserves scrutiny then it is Labour's.
Labour have also drawn attention to the fact that the Liberal Democrat campaign in Hodge Hill has set up shop in a former video rental outlet and they have used this fact to draw attention to Liberal Democrat policy on lowering the age of consent for those wishing to view pornography so that it comes into line with the age by which heterosexuals can legally have sex. In doing so they have failed to mention their own record on this issue. As Labour Watch point out it is Labour who have received donations from Richard Desmond, the publisher of the Express, Star and Spunk Loving Sluts.
