jean
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 13:17:13 GMT
These are good sources though, exco... There are no doubt others which tell a very different story. There is every doubt! But if you do find and post such a source, I will of course read it. Can't say fairer than that.
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 15:01:18 GMT
Any conclusion from Sheffield neither damns or supports PFI. You can only do that by looking at total cost and the PFI percentage, and I've already done that for myself.
PFI is a negligible percentage of total spend. You are arguing over the small change.
Billions looks like a lot, but in terms of the budget for things like health and education for a country of 65 million it really isn't worth arguing about.
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Post by aubrey on Oct 26, 2017 15:08:44 GMT
Any conclusion from Sheffield neither damns or supports PFI. You can only do that by looking at total cost and the PFI percentage, and I've already done that for myself. PFI is a negligible percentage of total spend. You are arguing over the small change. Billions looks like a lot, but in terms of the budget for things like health and education for a country of 65 million it really isn't worth arguing about. More than that, we're looking at giving private companies with no democratic oversight the powers that should only be given to elected Governments.
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 15:28:00 GMT
Not with PFI. You just agree to rent property from a private company. I don't see they have any power other than those of an ordinary landlord.
Sheffield seems to have cocked it up with some sort of deal involving trees, but that is their fault not the idea of PFI. If PFI hadn't been thought up, they might well have sold them to the Chinese, or leased the leaf compost to IS or something. There is very little you can do to stop a stupid and/or greedy council screwing things up.
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jean
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 17:37:48 GMT
He has shares in Ferrovial. It's the only possible explanation. ...a stupid and/or greedy council... And yet these are the people you want us to elect as our local representatives, rather than the wise and principled Greens! But...these other sources you speak of. I am waiting for the opportunity to read them, as I promised I would. Have you not found any yet?
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 17:43:44 GMT
I have never campaigned for anyone in Sheffield.
As to the other stories, I have already explained that they are as irrelevant as yours, and are of no interest.
What counts is the simple fact that PFI is of negligible expense and that you have swallowed the bluarse propaganda, hook, line and sinker.
I don't know why you find this so hard to understand.
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Post by aubrey on Oct 26, 2017 18:29:18 GMT
?
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jean
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 18:33:27 GMT
I have quoted numerous sources; not one of them emanates from the Tory party.
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jean
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 19:03:17 GMT
I have never campaigned for anyone in Sheffield. No. But you're so happy with the present state of the Labour party that you don't want to see their undeserved hegemonies anywhere messed with by PR. On the contrary - they are of very great interest, or would be if they existed. If they did, you'd tell us about them. You don't counter the marchesa's anti-AFW postings by saying 'There is evidence against what you write, but I'm not going to post it because it's irrelevant'.
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 21:30:54 GMT
Whatever is going on in Sheffield doesn't change the fact that PFI is about 1% of the education budget and rather less than that of the NHS budget.
These are the sort of figure you should be addressing if you want to make an honest claim that it is unaffordable, not a particular selected incident in one city.
And as I am a member of no political party, I have no belief in the superior intelligence of Labour councillors and am not particularly interested in defending them either.
I am sick of your obsessive ranting about PFI though. A period of silence on the matter would be very welcome.
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Post by aubrey on Oct 26, 2017 22:02:46 GMT
Oh come on exco - it's a message board - you don't get to say what other people can post. You needn't join in if you don't find it interesting.
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 22:49:59 GMT
Jean is free to spout whatever she likes. So are we all.
My point is simply that you need to look at the whole picture, not cherry-picked examples. Jean can bang on about Sheffield's trees or some obscure Liverpool school, but if she is to make a valid point about PFI, she should look at the overall picture.
March was a bugger at doing this, and was widely lampooned for it. Jean seems to be going the same way.
My points are
(a) PFI is not expensive. (b) Whilst there might be even cheaper options, they have not proved politically achievable (c) PFI has been used by this government to disguise its underfunding of education and health.
None of these are addressed by wittering on about clueless labour councillors in Sheffield, or a single PFI school in Liverpool that was closed but the council still has to pay the rent.
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Post by aubrey on Oct 27, 2017 7:09:34 GMT
It is. It's a hell of a lot more expensive than borrowing normallyl
That's the point: pretending you're not borrowing anything when you are. Politically the money could just have been borrowed,, and any protests just brushed off, as they usually are.
Well, yes.
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jean
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Post by jean on Oct 27, 2017 8:17:32 GMT
It is. Did anyone try? The great disappointment and terrible missed opportunity of the last Labour Government was exactly that they fell in with Thatcherite neoliberal economics without even attempting to achieve what their supporters had elected them to do. Whether this was because they really believed in Thatcherite orthodoxy or merely thought the alternative not politically achievable we will never know. One thing is certain: Labour were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the only people they had to satisfy were the natural Tories in marginal seats whose votes they'd borrowed. (That's an effect of FPTP.) This is an invention of your own. The arguments against PFI were first made when Labour threw themselves into it so enthusiastically when they were first elected. None of the sources I've quoted come from the Right. The present government keeps very quiet about it in fact, since its own intention is to do more of the same.
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jean
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Post by jean on Oct 27, 2017 8:26:29 GMT
None of these are addressed by wittering on about...a single PFI school in Liverpool that was closed but the council still has to pay the rent. I made that point as a direct response to your wittering on about...a subsequent tory government can cut funding, but they cannot cut buildings so easily. The PFI buildings that went up under labour are a big step forward for those of us who use them, and as they do not own them and are committed to paying for them, subsequent tory government cannot close them to save cash. Do you see the connexion now? In fact, you aren't even correct to say that PFI ensures that useful buildings will be kept in use; the Tories are quite capable of closing wards and beds to save the cost of what goes on in them, while being forced to continue to pay the rent on the whole of the buildings of which they form a part.
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