What is the point of labour ?

[scottsdad]

2 minutes ago, sophia said:

Just my experience of shysters but if it's a raw nerve I apologise 

Obvious and wilful ignorance is always a raw nerve.

[tamthebam]

13 hours ago, scottsdad said:

PFI/PPP isn't privatisation.

It is a form of contract where a private consortium will design, build and manage a building (school or hospital). The government pays no big capital costs up front but rather pays a fixed cost over, say, 25 years.

Labour coming into power in the 90s saw that they needed a huge building programme, as the tories had run everything down. The capital cost to build everything that was needed was high, so they went down the PFI route. Hey presto, loads of shiny new buildings.

The problems with PFI contracts arrived about 10 years later. They had signed so many, that by the late 2000s the taxpayer was paying huge sums to these contracts. Other issues came up also: there are various PFI types (BOO, BOOT, etc) and folk signing a contract in, say, 1999 weren't too fussed about what would happen 25 years later. So when the PFI contracts end, some buildings become government property, but others stay with private companies meaning new negotiations, or buying a now-oldish building.

Also, there isn't much flexibility in them. A PFI school in Newcastle closed in 2010 or thereabouts due to lack of pupils, but the council must keep paying for the upkeep of an empty school. If changes to the building are needed (as will often happen) then this is hugely difficult and expensive. 

In the UK we no longer use PFI but these are still very common for infrastructure projects (civil engineering and power plants) across the world.

PFI was thought up by some of the Conservative right wing (possibly John Redwood although I can't remember) in the early 1990s. The Major Government didn't take it up though (possibly Chancellor Fat Ken decided it was not worth the candle) 

The idea was revived by Blair and Brown and New Labour but the actual costs of PFI were kept off the balance books- Private Eye and others did reporting on what a bloody rip off PFI was. 

It amuses me sometimes to hear politicians go on about "crumbling schools" as it makes me wonder how many of those crumbling schools were jerry built by cowboys under PF a mere 25 years ago at 3 times the cost. 

[btb]

Quote

_{Sunak rejects offer of youth mobility scheme between EU and UK}

_.The prime minister declined the European Commission’s surprise proposal of a youth mobility scheme for people aged between 18 and 30 on Friday, after Labour knocked back the suggestion on Thursday night, while noting that it would “seek to improve the UK’s working relationship with the EU within our red lines”.

No surprise in Sunak running scare of his rightwingers, but I found it a bit surprising that Labour knocked it back first kinda suggesting that their red lines will still be geared at not offending the red wall post GE.

In fact knowing the GE is already lost, if Sunak had balls and a sense of humour (Yeah, OK), he missed a chance to embarrass Labour with a demographic in which they're well ahead.

[Cheese]

They chose the wrong Starmer, imagine what this man could do as PM.

[Granny Danger]

4 hours ago, D Angelo Barksdale said:

They chose the wrong Starmer, imagine what this man could do as PM.

If that guy was PM lots more folk would end up fucked.

 

 

So no difference really…

[DA Baracus]

10 hours ago, D Angelo Barksdale said:

They chose the wrong Starmer, imagine what this man could do as PM.

Won't work

[TONTROOPER]

2 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Won't work

# batteries not included.

[Highlandmagar]

Tory MP defects to Labour. He will feel right at home.

[Miguel Sanchez]

On 21/04/2024 at 22:06, D Angelo Barksdale said:

They chose the wrong Starmer, imagine what this man could do as PM.

Did he get the funding?

[Granny Danger]

55 minutes ago, Highlandmagar said:

Tory MP defects to Labour. He will feel right at home.

To paraphrase George Orwell

The creatures outside looked from Tory to Labour, and from Labour to Tory, and from Tory to Labour again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Edited April 27 by Granny Danger

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

A rare Tory to Tory defection.

Edited April 27 by Sherrif John Bunnell

[Freedom Farter]

Becoming a well-trodden path. Christian Wakeford began the trend. He made himself the news last year when he tried to ban Roger Waters from Manchester for criticising Israel (I think Waters is a knob on Russia and Putin but I've not seen much wrong with his Israel comments).

My point here is that these Tory defectors, if Wakeford is anything to go by, don't change their politics at all and just become another voice from within pushing Labour rightwards.

[Cheese]

1 hour ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Did he get the funding?

I've not watched Dragon's Den for a while tbf.

[MazzyStar]

3 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

To paraphrase George Orwell

The creatures outside looked from Tory to Labour, and from Labour to Tory, and from Tory to Labour again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Is that what made him become a snitch?  

[Richey Edwards]

5 hours ago, Highlandmagar said:

Tory MP defects to Labour. He will feel right at home.

He had a Bad Day.

 

[BFTD]

Abject laziness, or a complete lack of confidence in his own ability to find alternative employment?

Apparently he was a gynaecologist before becoming an MP. Fill yer boots.

[doulikefish]

The boy has been an mp since 2010 ,voted with the government on everything...Labour "welcome comrade"

[coprolite]

On 13/04/2024 at 10:14, scottsdad said:

PFI/PPP isn't privatisation.

It is a form of contract where a private consortium will design, build and manage a building (school or hospital). The government pays no big capital costs up front but rather pays a fixed cost over, say, 25 years.

Labour coming into power in the 90s saw that they needed a huge building programme, as the tories had run everything down. The capital cost to build everything that was needed was high, so they went down the PFI route. Hey presto, loads of shiny new buildings.

The problems with PFI contracts arrived about 10 years later. They had signed so many, that by the late 2000s the taxpayer was paying huge sums to these contracts. Other issues came up also: there are various PFI types (BOO, BOOT, etc) and folk signing a contract in, say, 1999 weren't too fussed about what would happen 25 years later. So when the PFI contracts end, some buildings become government property, but others stay with private companies meaning new negotiations, or buying a now-oldish building.

Also, there isn't much flexibility in them. A PFI school in Newcastle closed in 2010 or thereabouts due to lack of pupils, but the council must keep paying for the upkeep of an empty school. If changes to the building are needed (as will often happen) then this is hugely difficult and expensive. 

In the UK we no longer use PFI but these are still very common for infrastructure projects (civil engineering and power plants) across the world.

It absolutely is privatisation. 

It's not a wholesale privatisation of a state corporation like a lot of Thatcher's giveaways were. But it's privatisation of infrastructure assets and a disproportionate amount of their economic benefits, while keeping the risks with the public. 

It was sold as a way to get scarce capital investment and to get private companies to bear risks. 

These were always bullshit. 

It would always have been cheaper for the government to borrow. 

Private companies would always be getting bail outs, subsidies and contractual protections. 

It was ideologically driven for some Tory backers and avarice/corruption driven for others.

For Gordon Brown it was an opportunity to hide future spending commitments by keeping debt off the balance sheet. He also got to look all modern and cityish which he needed to do because if the terror  that Middle England/Mail/ Express has about Labour. If Labour had come in and borrowed or taxed to fund a huge spending programme they'd have had their cards marked. 

 

[BFTD]

Are any of them still pushing the "making the private sector bear the burden of risk" line anymore?

I'd like to think it'll be laughed out of serious discourse in the future, but I've a horrible feeling everyone will have forgotten that it means "allow our mates to pocket as much of the turnover as possible and leave everything to fall apart, then hand over taxpayer cash to cover anything urgent that needs to be done from there".

[Dan Steele]

Oh, there goes another pledge. Wee sneaky loophole to allow zero hours contracts. Despite saying they'd ban them completely.