Another fiscally incontinent "Free Unicorn" promise from Labour
Labour's party conference has produced a rich seam of daft or thoroughly nasty utterances, with Ken Livingston's suggestion that people who make "offensive comments" about Israel are not necessarily anti-semitic just being one among many eyebrow-raising comments.
The latest "free unicorn" promise is to nationalise PFI contracts, the vast majority of which were of course started under Labour governments.
I wrote a piece here which quoted an excellent short history of the origins of PFI. It seems like a very long time ago I posted that, but it was only about six months back during the Copeland by-election.
PFI - the Private Finance Initiative - was originally set up under Margaret Thatcher as a means of using tolls to pay for new and rebuilt river crossings at Dartford and get private industry to build it.
It worked brilliantly in that case: PFI was designed as a means of running revenue-raising projects like a toll crossing, and for that purpose it works.
Unfortunately Blair and Brown had the disastrous idea of extending this system to non-revenue raising facilities such as hospitals and fire stations, which it was not designed, and has been a financial disaster.
The first PFI hospital was the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, opened by Tony Blair in 2000, which has cost the NHS in Cumbria upwards of £20 million a year, far more than the actual value of the hospital, with dire consequences for the finances of our local NHS.
We do need to do something about the cost of PFI, but unaffordable promises to nationalise the whole thing re not the answer.
The latest "free unicorn" promise is to nationalise PFI contracts, the vast majority of which were of course started under Labour governments.
I wrote a piece here which quoted an excellent short history of the origins of PFI. It seems like a very long time ago I posted that, but it was only about six months back during the Copeland by-election.
PFI - the Private Finance Initiative - was originally set up under Margaret Thatcher as a means of using tolls to pay for new and rebuilt river crossings at Dartford and get private industry to build it.
It worked brilliantly in that case: PFI was designed as a means of running revenue-raising projects like a toll crossing, and for that purpose it works.
Unfortunately Blair and Brown had the disastrous idea of extending this system to non-revenue raising facilities such as hospitals and fire stations, which it was not designed, and has been a financial disaster.
The first PFI hospital was the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, opened by Tony Blair in 2000, which has cost the NHS in Cumbria upwards of £20 million a year, far more than the actual value of the hospital, with dire consequences for the finances of our local NHS.
We do need to do something about the cost of PFI, but unaffordable promises to nationalise the whole thing re not the answer.
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