Graham's comments are ridiculous. It's the politics of class warfare and his distain for the better off appears to blind his ability to understand rural poverty.
His argument is pretty baseless. He's helpfully ignored that the private sector will match fund this project to the tune of £30m. Only a proportion, £4.7m, is from Lancashire County Council. Graham appears to want to throw away £60m of allocated Government, European, and private sector funding for our region.
Graham's 25 jobs figure is very selective. The 25 jobs are direct jobs for the project, though he forgets to mention the 220 jobs that are also secured. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that many existing jobs will be protected by this funding. New businesses will be created and existing ones will grow as a result of the superfast broadband infrastructure. LCC and BT say the project will create about 2,500 new jobs and safeguard more than 1,200 over the next few years.
The broadband plan (
here if you're interested), as of November 2011, says it has the support of all Lancashire's MPs, including Graham. Would Graham like to comment on that?