Carillion
Obviously the collapse of Carillion is not good news for their employees, the small businesses which sold things to them, or the businesses which employed them.
I am sure the government is right that the company should not be bailed out by taxpayers and to order a review of the actions and remuneration of the directors of the company.
There will be lessons to learn from this and they should be learned - the disastrous record of the New Labour government's PFI schemes is evidence enough that not every private-public collaboration is a good one.
Equally we should be careful not to adopt contradictory views. In the past 36 hours I have heard it suggested by various commentators just seconds apart both that the government was shouldering all the risk while leaving private companies like Carillion to make all the profits, and that the collapse happened because the government had screwed the prices for contractors like Carillion right down so that they were not making enough profit.
Obviously those criticisms cannot both be accurate.
The first thing to do is ensure that someone able to cope with them, whether public or private sector, takes over the public services Carillion was running. The next thing is to try to minimise the numbers of innocent people hurt by the crash. Then we must look at learning lessons for the future.
I am sure the government is right that the company should not be bailed out by taxpayers and to order a review of the actions and remuneration of the directors of the company.
There will be lessons to learn from this and they should be learned - the disastrous record of the New Labour government's PFI schemes is evidence enough that not every private-public collaboration is a good one.
Equally we should be careful not to adopt contradictory views. In the past 36 hours I have heard it suggested by various commentators just seconds apart both that the government was shouldering all the risk while leaving private companies like Carillion to make all the profits, and that the collapse happened because the government had screwed the prices for contractors like Carillion right down so that they were not making enough profit.
Obviously those criticisms cannot both be accurate.
The first thing to do is ensure that someone able to cope with them, whether public or private sector, takes over the public services Carillion was running. The next thing is to try to minimise the numbers of innocent people hurt by the crash. Then we must look at learning lessons for the future.
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