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Mark Lansbury shares this open letter to Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Andrew Turner. Ed
Open letter to Andrew Turner MP
Dear Mr Turner, [In response to your email] With all due respect, are you serious?
Your statements are flawed, misleading, uninformed and inaccurate.
400 per household? Think for a moment if you will, what does that really mean? What is the reality of your statement?
While the statement may be accurate from a mathematical standpoint, it’s wildly and perhaps intentionally misleading to imply or suggest each household in the UK will be receiving an additional £400 annually. This is nothing short of magical thinking1.
To illustrate your wildly inaccurate statement consider this:
Let’s say, for example, a British corporation receives £1 billion from an overseas contract. Dividing £1 billion by the number of British households will result in a number: the £1 billion the corporation received evenly distributed over all UK households.
We must ask, ‘what happens in the real world in which we live?’ In other words, we should be asking if the above mathematical equation does, indeed, relate to real people and is actually putting money into the pocket of each UK household. To believe this is both naive and wrong. Full stop.
Brilliant propaganda perhaps, but no relation to reality for 99.9% of average, normal, real people.
I’m deeply disappointed by your response to concerns regarding TTIP. Additionally I’m offended by what appears to be your perceived low estimation of my basic intelligence and applied logic abilities.
Regards, Mark Lansbury, Newchurch
1 Magical thinking is the attribution of causal relationships between actions and events which cannot be justified by reason and observation.
Letter from Andrew Turner MP, to Mark Lansbury (27/01/15)
Dear Mark,
Thank you for your email concerning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
Underlying the agreement is the opportunity to add £10 billion to our economy every year, which is almost £400 per household, resulting in more jobs, more choice and reduced prices. Crucially, there is nothing in the agreement that has the power to change UK laws or lower consumer, labour or environmental standards. The EU and US have committed to maintaining standards at the highest levels and the Government has not authorised the EU to agree to anything that would lower standards.
Investment protection and Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions will not prevent the UK from taking regulatory action to protect the: public; environment; nor will they force the government to change laws, open markets or privatise public services.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to make me aware of your concerns. If I can be of any assistance with any other issues, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Turner
Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight
