THE long, tortuous path that the controversial £40billion Eurofighter project has taken reaches a smooth finish today as Britain and its three European partners today sign up to the legally-binding agreement for investment in the plane.
Though critics say the Eurofighter is a hugely-expensive white elephant defence against a threat that no longer exists, it is a vital project that always deserved to go ahead.
For it will provide up to 40,000 jobs at its peak, half of them here in Lancashire.
But, even more important than that, without it the entire European aerospace industry could collapse.
It would have been madness to shell out even more billions to buy American planes instead while selling away tens of thousands of jobs and wrecking the future of our own aerospace industry at the same time.
That's why the Eurofighter has to fly.
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