Graham Stringer, MP - aviation lobbyist
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Air Transport |
Lobbyist for the air transport industry
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Graham Stringer, MP |
Graham Stringer has been a ceaseless advocate of airport expansion. He was the architect of a stream of misleading propaganda about the economic and employment benefits that a 2nd runway at Manchester airport would bring. There is no evidence that these benefits have come about. Manchester Wythenshawe remains the most deprived borough in the whole country, despite being only two miles from the airport. And there is no evidence of a jobs bonanza. The complaint to the Press Council, about the misleading claims on jobs, has been vindicated.
Now an MP, Graham Stringer continues his advocacy of the air transport industry. Here are some extracts from more recent performances.
Waterfront Conference, Airports Outside the South East: Towards 2030', 3 Dec 2002
Misleading the public
As with other supporters of the aviation industry, Graham Stringer takes it as self-evident that growth of air travel must be good for the economy. "My guess is that the industry response to the consultation document will be, "We want lots more runways and capacity; we want better surface transport links and so on"; while the green environmental lobby will say, "No more - stop." Giving way to the temptation to balance those arguments would be a mistake. In many areas of life, particularly politics, balance and moderation are a good thing, but it would not help in determining aviation's position in our economy." As with the other supporters, he asserts the importance of air transport to the economy but cites no evidence to support that assertion. He ignores the point that air travel takes more money out of the country than it brings in.
Attacking environmentalists
He then attacks the environmental lobby. "Those who opposed it most - there were not many, although they made a great deal of noise - did so on ideological grounds. .. the discussions about how many greater crested newts, ponds and woodpeckers there would be after the second runway was built, and what would happen to the fish and the flow of the river underneath the runway. We pointed out that there would be more badgers, foxes and everything else, so the environmental and ecological arguments were good. Because aeroplanes are getting quieter, you could say that more people would be affected by less noise after the second runway was built. .. None of that cut any ice with those opposing it, because they were opposed to the growth of aviation. Some were quite violent, but when you talked to the more thoughtful ones, you discovered that what they really wanted was an end to aviation. They believed in a society in which - I am not caricaturing them; this is what they said - we could all go back to living in small clearings in the forest."
These are of course lies - but then he is a New Labour politician! Graham Stringer's tactics are similar to those of the 'Wise Use' movement in the US. This organisation, set up to oppose environmentalism, denies environmental impacts and attacks people who seek to protect the environment by misrepresenting their position.
Attacking communties
Graham Stringer is clearly worried about the opposition to airport expansion "Throughout the south-east, MPs of all political parties are saying that they do not want the new Cliffe airport or growth at other locations. Alan Haselhurst turned up at a meeting with Sir Roy at the House of Commons recently, and made his position very clear that he did not want growth at Stansted. The MPs in Sussex and around Brighton do not want growth at Gatwick, and MPs led by John McDonnell are saying that they are against growth at Heathrow. So there is a huge alliance across the south of England, which might be talking about only one new runway in one place." His last sentence is misleading. The government consultation makes it quite clear it is talking about 3 or 4 runways in the SE alone; either one each at several locations or several at one location.
His contempt for local communities and their elected representatives is clear "The Government needs to be very clear what they are going to do to break up that alliance. They need to stop the development - which has not started yet - of an alliance of Members of Parliament in the regions against any growth in the south-east .. To break those real and potential alliances, the Government have to be clear on what they are going to do, and have to give things to the regions so that it is clear how the policy will affect them and improve the economy and the massive regional imbalance." Again, he has to rely on unproven assertions about the economy to justify his attack on communities.
Transport Select Committee
On 2 April 03 Graham Stringer was at the Transport Select Committee, hearing from both industry and NGOs. He was struggling to find evidence to support his view that airport expansion will lead to large economic and employment gains : "Have you done any work that quantifies the loss to the UK economy or do you know of any piece of research? .. If the United Kingdom acts to restrain growth in air travel, is there not a danger that we will simply be exporting our problem elsewhere as well as exporting jobs from the environment?" He will have been disappointed not to have got any evidence from the industry.
He continued to pursue his bizarre theory that building airports is good for biodiversity: "To the RSPB, if I may, there is one example, only one in the last 50 years, of the building of a new runway, can you tell us what the building of that new runway at Manchester has done for biodiversity and bio?mass generally? Is it not the case there are more newts, more diversity in pond life, more bats, more barn owls, more kingfishers because of the mitigating effects of Manchester than there were before?" Needless to say, he got no support from the NGOs either for his perverse logic. RSPB in particular felt that an airport at Cliffe would be rather bad for birds and hence biodiversity! Not even the DfT and the government have suggested that building airports is anything but damaging for biodiversity!