The timing of an announcement of new hirings at earth-moving equipment manufacturers JCB, just as Chancellor George Osborne was visiting their Wrexham facility to proclaim that Wales needed to "make things again", is hardly coincidental.
JCB, who have been steadily exporting jobs to India and eastern Europe for some time, are among the stalwarts of hard-core Conservative party donors who operate a quiet but substantial network of funding schemes which funnel cash and support-in-kind into election campaigns.
Part of its labyrinthine nature started to unravel last year when legal proceedings between members of the controlling Bamford family threatened to put a spotlight on a little known outfit called JCB Research who had put chunks of cash into tory fighting funds.
The Guardian reported that the tiny private company within the JCB empire, worth only £27,000 on paper, had managed to be the biggest donor to the tories during the three-month period surrounding the general election. Records filed with the electoral commission reveal the company has given the party almost £2m since 2001, including £750,000 in June 2010 – a week after Sir Anthony Bamford withdrew his name from consideration for a peerage over apparent concerns about his tax affairs.
1 Comments:
The new hirings in Wrecsam will total 22, two years ago 196 were sacked, if this is the recovery god help us.
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