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		Tory backs Labour call to scrap EMDA Tuesday, 17th October 2006 East Midlands Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has today backed calls by a senior Labour official for the East Midlands Development Agency to be scrapped. Speaking on the BBC Politics Show, Cllr Milan Radulovic, the Labour Leader of Broxtowe Borough Council was scathing in his criticism of EMDA and insisted that its administrative costs are too high, its decision making not transparent and that EMDA members ‘jet set around the world looking for inward investment, with precious little to show for it’. Speaking today, Mr Helmer said: “As a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands I fully support the remarks of Cllr. Radulovic, and am very pleased to see a prominent Labour politician finally agreeing with what we have been saying for years”. “I have repeatedly called for EMDA and EMRA, the regional assembly, to be disbanded and we would be delighted if the Labour party were to back abolition of these unwanted and unloved regional structures, which are both cumbersome and expensive”. Mr Helmer, along with the Conservative candidate for Broxtowe, Anna Soubry, has written to Broxtowe’s MP Nick Palmer and Ruth Kelly MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government asking for clarification as to whether Cllr Radulovic’s comments are now official Labour Party policy.