Furore as Scots win contract for Clinton's archives

FURNITURE-making is not a line of work usually noted for global glamour and excitement on the world stage. But a handful of Scots yesterday found themselves bound up in a political row which has broken out in the campaign for the presidency of the United States.

Staff at Netherfield Visuals, in Midlothian, were at the centre of a debate about the US economy - a key issue in the race for the White House.

While Democrat candidates complain that too many American jobs are going overseas, the party’s last president has indirectly awarded Netherfield Visuals a contract worth 600,000 to make cabinets for his forthcoming presidential archive.

The foundation in charge of the 90 million Bill Clinton Presidential Library, to be built in Little Rock, Arkansas, says limited choices forced it to look to Scotland for the specialised museum cases.

Skip Rutherford, the foundation’s president, said: "[We have] worked hard to make sure that Arkansans and then Americans received the work."

But the firm which picked up the deal, Maltbie Associates, in New Jersey, subcontracted the manufacturing of 85 glass display cases to Netherfield Visuals, a family firm with about 30 staff, based in Dalkeith. The company is one of only two such specialist manufacturers in the UK and only a handful in the world.

With more than 2.4 million jobs lost as a result of free trade since George Bush took office in 2001, the loss of manufacturing and IT jobs and contracts abroad has become a major issue.