Karl McCartney Invites Prime Minister to see City's 'Excellent Progress'

Karl McCartney MP in a bright tie presented by local cadets

Karl McCartney MP, who represents the City of Lincoln, Bracebridge Heath and Waddingham West and Skellingthorpe, has invited Prime Minister David Cameron MP to visit the city.

The parliamentarian was speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday during the weekly Prime Minister's Questions, whilst wearing a bright, stripped neck tie, understood to have been presented to him recently by the Lincolnshire Army Cadet Force.

Mr. McCartney asked the Prime Minister to visit Lincoln and see progress in the manufacturing and engineering sector. Karl said:

"Is my right honourable friend aware of recent, very good news in the manufacturing and engineering sectors in Lincoln? Hoval have seen an increase in turnover of over twenty percent to around £17.5 million, Italian firm Bifrangi have confirmed a £50 million investment in a new tooling press, one of the largest in the world, and Siemens are involved with the first new Engineering School in our country for twenty years, at the University of Lincoln. Would my right honourable friend accept my personal invitation to visit Lincoln and see for himself the excellent progress our city is enjoying under his Conservative-led Government?"

The Prime Minister responded:

"I am very grateful for my honourable friend’s invitation and I shall try and take it up.

"As I said earlier, [despite] the very disappointing [GDP figures] today, underneath there is a rebalancing that needs to take place and is taking place, in terms of manufacturing investment, in terms of exports and in terms of the government getting behind that with more investment in apprenticeships, more investment in technical hubs at our universities like the one at the University of Lincoln, and cutting business taxes so we get Britain working and making things again."

Vote for change on 4th June

David Cameron has today launched the Conservative Party's local election campaign and urged people to "vote for change" on 4th June.

He accused Labour of:

"running our country into the ground... [by] borrowing eye-watering amounts of money, presiding over social decline, [and] letting our politics descend into the quagmire."

He highlighted the 'national importance' of these elections and urged voters to

"give this weak, useless and spineless Government a message it won’t forget" on June 4th:

"With every Conservative vote, that message will be simple: 'Enough is enough. You’re the past.'"

Mr. Cameron stressed that Conservative councils offer value for money and provide 'more for less':

"They are delivering more of the safe, clean and green streets that are so vital to everyone’s quality of life for the less tax that is so important for everyone struggling in Labour’s Debt Crisis."

He promised to instruct Conservative councillors, new and re-elected, to

“go through the books, page by page, line by line, to see what savings you can make and do everything you can to get council tax down and help people in Labour’s Debt Crisis.”

And he stressed that Conservative councils are greener, helping to improve the local environment and protect green spaces, cleaner, with lower levels of the graffiti, fly-posting and fly-tipping, and safer, with lower levels of crime, anti-social behaviour and vandalism.

"Of the councils with the top twenty highest ‘overall satisfaction’ ratings by residents, sixteen are Conservative and none are Labour or Liberal Democrat controlled. This shouldn’t surprise anyone."

A key theme of the Local Elections campaign will be how councils are working to combat the recession, in Lincolnshire's case supporting local businesses, helping protect local jobs. Working with others, Conservative councils have introduced a range of innovative schemes to keep local firms in business and local people in work.

When Siemens, a major local employer, was looking to relocate its gas turbine production from Lincoln, Lincolnshire County Council acted swiftly to protect local jobs and avoid a huge blow to the local economy. Working in partnership with two district councils, the county council persuaded the company that a site, which they had identified for potential development into a business park, could be a suitable location. A state-of-the-art factory and offices are now under construction. In the last few years, projects led by the council’s economic regeneration section, have helped to create 2,000 jobs.