The Labour Government

[blueinsa]

In other news Labour are starting to fulfil their promise of nationalising the rail services which I think the vast majority support.

Gas and Electricity next please.

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

Did you sleep through the Blair/Brown years then?

Reeves wouldn’t go full PFI would she?

How awkward would that be for you to defend?

No ... I didn't 'sleep' through the Blair / Brown years..... PFI & PFI2 was / is an absolute disaster in the form used. It is the constant blaming of the Labour party for its introduction and use that gets on my wick ,

 

[Vic]

No ... I didn't 'sleep' through the Blair / Brown years..... PFI & PFI2 was / is an absolute disaster in the form used. It is the constant blaming of the Labour party for its introduction and use that gets on my wick ,

At least we did actually get new Blair / Brown hospitals unlike those 40 new Liar Johnson hospitals.

 

[Kompany Car]

In other news Labour are starting to fulfil their promise of nationalising the rail services which I think the vast majority support.

Gas and Electricity next please.

Unfortunately Gas and Electricity were not in their manifesto so wont be this parliament according to the new Transport secretary and they already have GB Energy on the cards.

I would guess, looking at the state of it, Water would be next if anything.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

Unfortunately Gas and Electricity were not in their manifesto so wont be this parliament according to the new Transport secretary and they already have GB Energy on the cards.

I would guess, looking at the state of it, Water would be next if anything.

Isn’t it all to do with contracts? Rail have short term contracts, about 5 years lease, whereas utilities have far longer agreements and are very difficult to bring back into public control. With water, I think the only way to get them back is if the private companies basically hand them back.

 

[stonerblue]

Cool. Now I know where we can dump all our illegal aliens. America thanks you for your service.

I just checked - we can offer you 15 million illegals arriving daily on large boats over four years. 20 million? We could do 20 if that suits.

And you edited this..???

 

[Brewster's millions]

But , of course, the Conservatives (who introduced PFI) and reintroduced it in 2012 (after it had been discontinued by Labour ) won't have wasted a penny on it will they?

You do appear to get quite animated by this, so I've helpfully provided some figures for you to place the issue into context.

The Treasury has useful spreadsheet on its website which list the various PFI deals, shows which government signed off the deals, the capital value of the projects, profile of repayments and so on. Unsurprisingly, they do show the very large majority of deals being signed off by the Labour government.

As of end March 2023, the latest data available, there are 669 deals outstanding in total, with a capital value of £50.2bn, resulting in repayments of £278.3bn.

The Labour government signed off 576 of these deals, accounting for £42bn of the capital value and £246.7bn of the repayments. That's 89% of the cost of the deals. They also signed off a deal just 5 days before the 2010 election, so they clearly didn't discontinue the use of PFI at any point.

Interesting figures given the speculation of Reeves reintroducing PFI. She can't be that dumb, can she?

 

[Kompany Car]

Isn’t it all to do with contracts? Rail have short term contracts, about 5 years lease, whereas utilities have far longer agreements and are very difficult to bring back into public control. With water, I think the only way to get them back is if the private companies basically hand them back.

Yes the franchise only runs for a set period on a particular route so it does make it easier. Not sure what happens however with the utilities if the regulator decides they are failing and they dont act on the improvement notices. I would assume the government remains the operator of last resort.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

Yes the franchise only runs for a set period on a particular route so it does make it easier. Not sure what happens however with the utilities if the regulator decides they are failing and they dont act on the improvement notices. I would assume the government remains the operator of last resort.

I seen something about waters and it basically said that the companies would have to poison people for an extended period of time for the government to step in. Even then, the companies would retain overall control until the end of the contract. A rolling 25 years seems to ring a bell?

 

[Bournemouth Blue]

Renationalising the rail service means the staff transfer to the public sector, good for them, bad for the rest of us