“The Labour Party, at least during the 1970s believed in things like council housing and a health service free at the point of need for everybody. But today’s Labour leaders don’t believe in any of these things. It was the Labour government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that placed this giant monkey of PFI on the backs of all of our public services.”
In October 2018 the Tories announced that they would no longer use the PFI model. Having transferred billions from the public purse into the bottomless pit of corporate greed, the system and the words “PFI” were simply no longer tenable.
Many existing PFI contracts remain in place and it remains to be seen whether some will outlive the buildings they reputedly financed. A recent report suggested that there were something like 700 operational PFI contracts in place in the UK with a capital value of £57 billion.
Socialists always opposed PFI which was was never about building public infrastructure but rather transferring public money into private hands. The working class has within its power everything it needs to order society for the benefit of the labouring majority. An island of coal in a sea of oil, with huge potential for wind and water power providing energy to power our industry. All the requisite skill to make steel, glass, or innovative buildings from timber and other materials and an educated workforce to fill our hospitals, schools and houses with technology and the equipment we need. All these things are produced, built and serviced by working people; the financiers and bankers, the investors and their like make no productive contribution to the nation and leave little to future generations but debt and bondage.