Pfi Is The New Scapegoat?

[alchresearch]

A cut and paste from my post in the Labour thread.

 

I'm finally pleased that the school PFI farce is coming to light.

 

BITD you could see it was a disaster in the making. These schools looked lovely, but huge glass atriums of buildings cost a fortune to heat in winter, and cool in Summer. 

 

In a regular school if a window was broken, the caretaker would get a pane of glass and his ladder and quickly replace it.  But in these new builds you need a special piece of glass and an expensive cherry picker.

 

Network equipment that wouldn't be out of place in a high-end bank.  No £300 HP network switches (the school standard) when you can buy a £1000 Cisco switch instead.  

 I worked with one school that was getting new Dell computers.  If they'd bought direct from Dell they were £329 each.  But as it was under PFI they were forced to buy from their managed service provider, who bought from an IT supplier, who then bought from Dell.  Price per machine £549.

 

One consultant at a school said "we're going to give every staff member and student an ipad". Completely overlooked the cost of managing them.  The school had to take on TWO extra full time technicians to manage all the losses, damage and handle loaners and chargers.  The company managing the warranties which covered "accidental" damage had to cancel the contract as it was costing them a fortune and the school was out of pocket having to foot the bill.

 

 

The PFI contracts bankrupting our schools are coming back to haunt Labour

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/keir-starmer-labour-pfi-mistakes-2901882

[alchresearch]

Another PFI failure from a few years ago - was costing Amey too much to maintain Brum's roads, so they got out of it,

 

Amey ‘agrees £300m settlement’ with Birmingham council

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/civils/amey-reaches-300m-pfi-settlement-birmingham-council-27-06-2019/

[Delbow]

20 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

PFI was used by our governments to con us into thinking that they were providing us with the things we needed, 

whereas they were simply doing a Hire Purchase deal,  and we would pay later,  after they had gone.

 

Absolutely. The Blair government had the chance to make the case for progressive taxation, including a wealth tax, to pay for essential infrastructure, but instead they bought it on tick so that it became someone else's problem. Wánkers.

[Anna B]

On 13/02/2024 at 10:54, Delbow said:

Absolutely. The Blair government had the chance to make the case for progressive taxation, including a wealth tax, to pay for essential infrastructure, but instead they bought it on tick so that it became someone else's problem. Wánkers.

Indeed.

 

Blair was 'New Labour' - the electable Labour, and people went for it in droves after years of Tories in power. What the electorate didn't realise is New Labour = Tory light... after all, as Tony Blair said 'were all middle class now...' and he went along employing Tory style spin. 

 

However, one thing the Tories are good at is keeping Labour out of power, not by being good at government, but by manipulating the public using dirty tactics ; sound bites ('winter of discontent' etc.) personal attacks and smeers, lies and anti-Labour propaganda,  all gleefully reported by the Tory owned media, and in Boris Johnson's case, avoiding confrontation by refusing to do serious interviews, and hiding in fridges.

 

I'm not sure Starmer is much  better - he certainly hasn't got Blair's charisma or cunning, but in the absence of any party espousing  real responsible socialism on offer, what other choice is there?

 

 

[Anna B]

7 minutes ago, Anna B said:

Indeed.

 

Blair was 'New Labour' - the electable Labour, and people went for it in droves after years of Tories in power. What the electorate didn't realise is New Labour = Tory light... after all, as Tony Blair said 'were all middle class now...' and he went along employing Tory style spin. 

 

However, one thing the Tories are good at is keeping Labour out of power, not by being good at government, but by manipulating the public using dirty tactics ; sound bites ('winter of discontent' etc.) personal attacks and smeers, lies and anti-Labour propaganda,  all gleefully reported by the Tory owned media, and in Boris Johnson's case, avoiding confrontation by refusing to do serious interviews, and hiding in fridges.

 

I'm not sure Starmer is much  better - he certainly hasn't got Blair's charisma or cunning, but in the absence of PR or any party espousing  real responsible socialism on offer, what other choice is there?

 

 

 

[El Cid]

On 13/02/2024 at 10:54, Delbow said:

Absolutely. The Blair government had the chance to make the case for progressive taxation, including a wealth tax, to pay for essential infrastructure, but instead they bought it on tick so that it became someone else's problem. Wánkers.

HMRC collected £788.6 billion in taxes in 2022 to 2023, an increase of 10.2% from the year before.

 

Under Sunak the ordinary worker has had to suffer a frozen personal allowance!

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, El Cid said:

HMRC collected £788.6 billion in taxes in 2022 to 2023, an increase of 10.2% from the year before.

 

Under Sunak the ordinary worker has had to suffer a frozen personal allowance!

And that's from the party of  "Low Taxation"  who have us paying more tax than at any time,  under any government,  since World War 2

[Anna B]

3 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

And that's from the party of  "Low Taxation"  who have us paying more tax than at any time,  under any government,  since World War 2

Conservatives are just a lot craftier than the rest. Loads of hidden taxes which they don't exactly shout about do they? They have nothing but contempt for the public, think they are stupid and won't notice...