Credit Driven Recession – No Probs, Let’s Spend More on the Never Never

According to government figures, we’re soon going to be repaying a total of £30bn on PFI payments to private industry.

This equates to around £1bn a year for the next 30 years.

By that time, many of the schools, hospitals, built under PFI will be starting to crumble, if they aren’t out of date; needing expansion, law driven alterations, etc..

And in the midst of this, we have the opposition parties (specifically Labour) demanding more expenditure.

How much more, is the question.

Following the first failed budget vote, David Whitton, in a fine fury, berated the government for not taking on board Labour’s 15 point plan for recovery.

When asked what Labour plans would cost, he replied (on Radio Scotland) “dunno, but the SNP government should do it anyway”.

Well, according to one source not so long ago, Labour demands equated to around £4.5bn per annum.

Given that the Scottish budget is wound so tight that if it farted, the sound would be audible only to dogs, you’ve got to suspect that Labour’s demands are simply untenable.

We even had Iain Gray claiming that the government had accepted and adopted Labour’s economic plan, and that they’d accepted Labour’s plans for apprenticeships. (Wrong, they’d done nothing of the sort).

What Labour quite deliberately ignores here is that, if the chancellor, whose bags Iain Gray used to carry in Whitehall, is cutting our block grant, then these demands will be impossible to countenance.