Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
It makes me laugh how the Italians complain about their truly terrible politics. But life wouldn’t be fair...they have these beautiful cities, a stunning light, mountains, food (x10000000), sea, culture, art, beautiful looking people....so you cannot have it all.
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
It makes me laugh how the Italians complain about their truly terrible politics. But life wouldn’t be fair...they have these beautiful cities, a stunning light, mountains, food (x10000000), sea, culture, art, beautiful looking people....so you cannot have it all.
Italy has a dark side, which most short-term visitors do not see.
The one thing that is being overlooked is that at the time Brown put rocket boosters under PFI interest rates were very much higher so the cost would have been very much bigger than today. We are in damage of thinking interest rates have always been very low. Indeed I can remember them being at 15%
McDonnell was right though, under both Tories and New Labour it was the only way to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.
In Leicester our PFI "Pathway" was abandoned a decade ago, but as a result of no major structural investment, until our new Emergency Dept last year, we have a decrepit and inefficient estate. The running costs on two sites with modern buildings would be a lot better than 3 with a hodgepodge of old and new. We have had 20 years of planning blight. It was PFI or nothing, and PFI was a rip off.
Not sure I follow McDonnell was right but it was the only way to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure.
McDonnell was right in not opposing a PFI hospital, while being against the principle.
PFI was not the only way to rebuild public infrastructure, both public borrowing and higher taxes were obvious alternatives. PFI was a political choice, and should be hung around the necks of the politicians who enforced it, like an albatross.
Seems a definition of hypocrisy to me but I agree re PFI responsibility
The one thing that is being overlooked is that at the time Brown put rocket boosters under PFI interest rates were very much higher so the cost would have been very much bigger than today. We are in damage of thinking interest rates have always been very low. Indeed I can remember them being at 15%
McDonnell was right though, under both Tories and New Labour it was the only way to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.
In Leicester our PFI "Pathway" was abandoned a decade ago, but as a result of no major structural investment, until our new Emergency Dept last year, we have a decrepit and inefficient estate. The running costs on two sites with modern buildings would be a lot better than 3 with a hodgepodge of old and new. We have had 20 years of planning blight. It was PFI or nothing, and PFI was a rip off.
Exactly - failure to invest can be very expensive also.
We are missing a golden opportunity to borrow to invest right now. That’s what McDonnell and Labour understand and what the Tories can’t/won’t understand.
Edit - I should add some Tories like Sajid Javid do seem to see the opportunity...
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
It makes me laugh how the Italians complain about their truly terrible politics. But life wouldn’t be fair...they have these beautiful cities, a stunning light, mountains, food (x10000000), sea, culture, art, beautiful looking people....so you cannot have it all.
Perfect description of Italy and Italians and why our family love them so much
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
It makes me laugh how the Italians complain about their truly terrible politics. But life wouldn’t be fair...they have these beautiful cities, a stunning light, mountains, food (x10000000), sea, culture, art, beautiful looking people....so you cannot have it all.
Perfect description of Italy and Italians and why our family love them so much
Not to mention comparing the experience of taking a couple of young children out to a restaurant in Italy with that in France....
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Sorry but that is an argument of nonsense. Co tractually obliged future payments are identical to debt in their economic effect.
I think he is saying that Brown wanted to spend more than the markets would let him do he indulged in off balance sheet financing and got away with it for a while
Are market analysts really that lazy not to factor in the discounted negative PV of the future obliged payments and then add it to the debt ?
Yep
(To be fair, there were so many and often small and not well disclosed people didn’t really think through the implications. With PFI you are not paying back debt, just inflated current spending so easier to hide
"Last week, unrelated to the Carillion debacle, a new NAO report showed costs under PFI some 40pc higher than relying on government finance, not least as the state can borrow more cheaply."
And the really annoying thing is that the sh!ttiest PFIs that Carillion had are going to be the most valuable assets as the company gets wound up. Far from being an easy way for government to buy out the worst deals, they’ll be the ones subject to a bidding war from Carillion’s competitors.
Comments
It makes me laugh how the Italians complain about their truly terrible politics. But life wouldn’t be fair...they have these beautiful cities, a stunning light, mountains, food (x10000000), sea, culture, art, beautiful looking people....so you cannot have it all.
We are missing a golden opportunity to borrow to invest right now.
That’s what McDonnell and Labour understand and what the Tories can’t/won’t understand.
Edit - I should add some Tories like Sajid Javid do seem to see the opportunity...
https://twitter.com/IanMurrayMP/status/955072109834899456
NEW THREAD
(To be fair, there were so many and often small and not well disclosed people didn’t really think through the implications. With PFI you are not paying back debt, just inflated current spending so easier to hide