A reply to Alistair Cambbell

Earlier today Tony Blair's former chief Pin doctor, Alistair Campbell tweeted this:

"If there are any Tories following me, can I ask you to name one single thing that has improved in our country under your decade plus in charge."

I don't follow him but Twitter displayed it on my timeline anyway. And here's my answer. (I had to shorten the twitter version a bit to meet the character limit.)

"The facilities at my local hospital.

We're now on the third phase of major rebuilding at West Cumberland fully funded by the coalition or by the Conservatives, each phase delivering magnificent fully equipped buildings including new wards, new maternity facilities, new cardio facilities, new maternity facilities. Something which the pathetic government for which you were chief spinner promised again and again to do but never funded and never delivered.

And it's not a PFI 'Get one hospital, pay for six' Ponzi scheme like the one you did elsewhere in Cumbria which nearly bankrupted our local NHS but a direct build backed by more than £150 million of public investment."




Comments

Anonymous said…
I refer you to Quote of the day 3rd November 2022 - who was it "fully funded" by?
7:52 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
If you mean where did the money come from, it was of course fully funded by the taxpayer.

The government which allocated taxpayers' money to the first stage of rebuilding was the Conservative led coalition, subsequent phases were agreed by Conservative governments.

Copeland Labour sometimes pretend that the Conservatives implemented their plans, but what we inherited from Labour was an unapproved promise against an underfunded national capital programme. The first business case was not approved until after the coalition took office.

The other important point is that the funding of this scheme as a public project directly funded with taxpayers' money stands in contrast to - and was a better deal for the taxpayer than - Labour's PFI (Private Finance Initiative) schemes which turned out in practice to mean get one hospital, and then get stung over the following decades for an amount equivalent to the cost of six hospitals.
10:02 pm
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