Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for 10 years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
Promoted by Bob Piper of 115 Barclay Rd, B67 5JZ on behalf of the Labour Party, care of 39 Victoria Street London, SW1H 0HA . Hosted (printed) by Swaithe Internet Solutions who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts.
Please note however, that The Labour Party is not responsible for the content of this website or individual posts as, unless specifically stated, I am writing solely in a personal and individual capacity.
Promoted by Bob Piper of 115 Barclay Rd, B67 5JZ on behalf of the Labour Party, care of 39 Victoria Street London, SW1H 0HA . Hosted (printed) by Swaithe Internet Solutions who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts.
Please note however, that The Labour Party is not responsible for the content of this website or individual posts as, unless specifically stated, I am writing solely in a personal and individual capacity.
For the last 20 years we have been expected to swallow the 'Private sector good - public sector bad' myth both in terms of the provision of public services, and the financing of them through various PPI's, PFI's and other Private Public Partnership deals. This letter in The Guardian is a plea for sanity.
So Metronet (Fate of the tube, July 17) is the latest public-private partnership failure. How much longer do we have to accept the fiction that laundering infrastructure borrowing short-term through the private sector at much greater cost is "good" economics whereas straight, low-cost, long-term government borrowing is "naughty" economics. Government action on infrastructure has been crippled by this carpetbagger theology for decades, and all the taxpayer gets is less investment and the lining of financial-sector pockets. The PPPs are financial trojan horses designed to fail and leave the taxpayer to pick up the consequences at even greater cost. The consequences are more apparent in transport beyond the underground. A hundred years ago cities and towns built tram systems at a rate that would terrify today's Treasury. These served well for 50 years until discarded in the mistaken rush for oil and the canard that a built infrastructure gives the public provider an "unfair market advantage". At the current rate of progress we will take a century to rebuild the urban transport systems Edwardians built in a decade, and long after a dozen Metronets have come and gone, and we remain the most expensive urban transport provider in Europe, for the user and the taxpayer.
Mostyn Lewis
London
What the writer doesn't mention is that many of the tram networks (and all of London's pre 1930s tubes) were built by the private sector (although many of the companies ended up bust).
There's also the stupid Public Sector Borrowing Requirement problem. Rightly or wrongly (almost certainly the latter) the people who control the world's financial markets seem obsessed by the PSBR. PFI is one way of keeping it (apparently) relatively low whilst still allowing for substantial investment in infrastructure. In a sane world this might not apply but we don't live in a particularly rational world. PSBR is one of the many constraints on the power of a government that I used to keep banging on about in my blog.
And we shouldn't forget that we were still paying interest on the loans taken out to nationalise the railways and the coal mines (I think) fifty years later. So that kind of nationalisation (in which Atlee's government bought peace with the City by paying over-the-odds for almost bankrupt industries) is also 'mortgaging our children's future' to the money markets (to coin an emotive phrase often favoured by PFI's many opponents). I'm not saying I like PFI but I like it more than not investing at all.
This is complex stuff...
Phew
Gary Elsby stoke-on-trent said:
July 18, 2007 12:47 PM | permalink
So how does a well meaning Labour Party that talks and acts big, actually go about 'Rebuilding Britain', when all it can actually do is spend up to a maximum of 3% of GDP?
It's a classic, Bob.
One answer is to say, 'to hell with the EU' and let's pull out and go our own way.
Which is pretty much what the BNP, UKIP and I believe hard nosed Tories actually want.
Do you believe in the EU, Bob? Is the LP more in tune with Europe than most other parties?
July 18, 2007 10:31 AM | permalink
All nice stuff, Bob and appears to be very sane and sensible. So why move away from such sanity?
Because Gordon may not be able to do any of those without inflating the economy and may not be able to do them due to EU rules.
We are a mixed economy that becomes unbalanced when too much public spending becomes the easiest game in Town.
The biggest employer is the small private sector and is your Ward and Constituencies biggest employer.
Gordon does not want his accounts sheet to show up new schools, hospitals etc.Why build new houses, when someone else will? Makes sense doesn't it?