10 years on, Dave Prentis, who was the subject of much abuse and negative briefing by New Labour ministers at the 2002 conference, restates in today’s Guardian UNISON’s objections to PFI: "We're sitting on a PFI debt time bomb, and the sheer scale of the burden paints a seriously grim picture for the future of our public services." As predicted back in 2002, PFI had left the UK with a "staggering mountain of debt"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jul/05/pfi-cost-300bn?newsfeed=true
It should be remembered that in 2002 the unions had sought only an independent review of PFI - having been prepared to compromise on the original demand for a moratorium - but even that was too much for the self righteous neo liberal zealots of the Blair/Brown leadership:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/oct/01/labourconference.labour13
In pre-conference spin Brown even made a virtue of dismissing the democratic demands of Labour’s membership, giving notice to the Daily Telegraph ahead of the conference that he would ignore an anti-Government vote and press ahead with his multi-billion pound PFI building plans.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1408380/Brown-is-defiant-on-private-finance.html#
The handling of PFI by New Labour is not only a case study in a short sighted failure of public policy. It demonstrates the extent to which Labour Party democracy was hollowed out in the New Labour years.
It is a lesson that UNISON Labour Link national forum delegates meeting in Cardiff today must not forget.
