Thursday 18 January 2018

Initiative, Representative

At anything up to 40 per cent, and in one case 70 per cent, more expensive than old-fashioned public sector methods, the Private Finance Initiative and its imitations were never about saving money. They were about breaking the public sector trade unions, a cause common to the post-Thatcher Conservatives and to New Labour. Neither the post-Thatcher Conservatives nor New Labour cared how much that cost. To them, it would have been well worth all the money in the world.

There have been rather a lot of Days New Labour Died. The Crash. Dropping below 30 per cent of the vote in 2010. The Conservative overall majority in 2015, obtained though that was by criminal means. The election of Jeremy Corbyn. The re-election of Jeremy Corbyn. And now, this. But on one thing, there is no dispute. New Labour is dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of its burial has been signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.

Larry Elliott sets out, among much else, that only enormous companies are capable of taking on the kind of contracts that Carillion has, and that those companies then effectively subsidise and guarantee their private sector work out of the public purse. There are eight or 10 of these corporations, a state within the State, and each of them is supposed to have a Crown Representative, although it would seem that such positions are relatively rarely filled.

When there are any at all, then who are these Crown Representatives? Where do they come from? How, and by whom, are they appointed? How, and by whom, can they be removed? For all eight or 10 positions, I nominate Stella Creasy. Merging them all might not be such a bad idea. That would create a formidable figure.

Dr Creasy might also fill the position that has been vacated by Toby Young on the Board of the Office for Students. Or what is Pat Glass doing these days? In any event, someone is going to to have to take that place. Who is it going to be, and why?

Even after Carillion had issued its severe profit warning, the Government was still favouring it with public contracts. Was the Conservative Party also still taking donations from it? And is Toby Young still a member of that party? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then we are dealing with an enormous scandal.

And yet, not. We know that the Conservative Party was taking money from the hedge funds that were betting against Carillion, at the same time as the Conservative Government was awarding contracts to it. And we know that even after Young's resignation, Theresa May appointed a Party Vice-Chairman who wanted to sterilise the poor, who believed that nurses who were using foodbanks needed to stop whingeing and find other employment, who advocated "Police brutality", and who defended the unlawful killing of Ian Tomlinson. That Vice-Chairman remains in office.

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