Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
A Tory idea which, in practice, was almost entirely implemented, manipulated and misused by Labour. The worrying thing is that, as with immigration, I don't think these were all just mistakes made by inept people. I think there was a large dose of political cynicism at work - short term gain at the ballot box which, the real price of which, if all went well, would either never become apparent to the electorate or would do so only after those responsible had long left office and would be living the high life on their fat perks and pensions. |
This isn't a partisan issue and I see no point in handing out blame. It wasn't manipulated or misused by Labour, they were doing the exact same things with it the previous Conservative government were, and the current government are following much the same course.
I honestly couldn't care less about which party is involved or how they are doing it, neither should be doing it. There is absolutely no reason, in the current environment of record low bond yields, for the state to even contemplate PFI.
Our current interest rate on 10 year gilts is 2.25%. Why in the holy mother of copulation would a government be using far more expensive PFI?
It is of course obvious - they can hide PFI from the deficit figures, and they staked their reputation on reducing the deficit which of course they've abysmally failed to.
Just FYI while Osborne, Cameron etc are trying to get people to bow and scrape to them over their 'tough decisions' to get the deficit down, Barack Obama pumped cash into the US economy through a series of stimulus packages and, oh look, the US deficit hasn't gone up, nor has it been cut by a third, but been reduced by over 70% from 10% of GDP to 2.8% of GDP.
While the previous administration entered into a number of bad PFI deals and were corporatist, this one has been simply sado-masochistic with their economic management, however the only masochism has been political, they and their mates are doing superbly thanks very much.
---------- Post added at 15:26 ---------- Previous post was at 15:22 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
Nothing wrong with PFI, if done correctly.
Labour cocked it up royally.
PFI should not be a dirty word, it's a good concept and can work.
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PFI only works when the private sector offer better value for money but that requires quite a few factors to fall into place.
Most of the time PFI only offers better value for money when the private company have screwed up and will be going bankrupt as a result.