Matthew Maw

@thetimes Ed Davey proving again why you should not vote Lib Dem.

Ed Davey: ‘Zack Polanski has taken up where Jeremy Corbyn left off’ #Echobox=1777849936" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar…

@RossMcCaff ‘I’m absolutely furious to discover I have a niece - there will be a full investigation’

"I didn't know I had a niece. Its inconceivable the Prime Minister isn't told when he has a niece, and I'm absolutely furious to discover it"

Deafening applause as Zack Polanski tells Zia Yusuf that people's concern over immigration is because he spends all his time spreading misinformation and fear. #bbcqt

Hilariously, when you actually read this FT article 👇 one of the main "national security problems for Europe" that could be "posed by Chinese green technology" is, quote: "that the US could demand Europe remove Chinese technology from its energy systems — or face tariffs, sanctions or reduced security commitments." In other words, a risk that has literally nothing to do with China but everything to do with the US's chokehold on European sovereignty.

Left: Ed Balls criticises Zack Polanksi suggesting that him being a Labour cabinet minister 16 years ago doesn't affect his journalistic independence Right: Ed Balls gloating about talking to his wife, Yvette Cooper, the current Foreign Secretary, who spoke about her trip to the US with King Charles, and how his speech in the US Congress was 'incredibly moving' Don't be like Ed Balls

بالعادة منشوراتي تنتشر بس بالدول العربية ، لكن هذا المنشور بالإضافة للدول العربية وصل لحد الآن لاكثر من 30 دولة غير عربية وأكثر دولة تفاعل بعد العراق هيَ الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية

This is good. Given how many people don’t understand how councils and combined authorities make decisions, where the funding comes from and how they interact, demystifying a lot of that is essential for an informed citizenry and an informed citizenry is essential for democracy.

I dunno man, if this is how rattled the Greens are making the British establishment I think they've gotta be worth a shot 💚

Latest - being a vassal state of America is more important than ever King Charles delivers historic speech to US Congress - live updates - BBC News bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4g5…

Bridget Phillipson: "Ed, you were a senior adviser in govt for many years, you were a secretary of state" Uh oh.

How dare you suggest I am the spouse of a senior Labour politician, and my breakfast television spot might, perhaps, indicate a conflict of interest!

The only reason that the NHS doesn’t have the staff or beds it needs is because a well-funded, well-staffed NHS removes any need for private healthcare.

Legend

McDonald's boss on abuse claims: 'I don't want to talk about the past' Answer = stop going to McDonalds Bad culture for work & food People deserve better food & jobs than this The cost of growing the economy based on companies like this isn’t worth it bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Every Iranian politician having a PhD has been a disaster for the dialogue among civilizations

A move toward a US-style system in UK would represent a shift from healthcare as a universal right to healthcare as a conditional service, writes @dorset_eye . For UK patients, particularly those already vulnerable, that is not just a policy debate, it is a matter of access, security, and, in some cases, survival. dorseteye.com/following-nige…

Midlands towns and cities ranked on list of poorest in England - with one in second place - Birmingham Live birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-…

The only other building collaboratively designed by Barry and Pugin, and it was on this commission that they first met each other, was King Edwards School on Birmingham’s New Street. It was demolished in 1936.

This one will require a stiff drink. In the early 1990s, the government came up with a clever idea. Instead of borrowing money cheaply to build hospitals, schools, and roads, it would get the private sector to build them and then pay the private sector back over 25 to 30 years. The Private Finance Initiative. PFI. The attraction was obvious. You got a shiny new hospital today. The bill didn't show up on the government's books. The cost was deferred into the future. Politicians got ribbon-cutting ceremonies without the awkward conversation about borrowing. It was, in effect, the nation's credit card. Buy now, pay later. Except the interest rate was extraordinary. The total capital value of everything built under PFI was around £50 billion. As of March 2024, there were 665 PFI contracts still running across the UK, with roughly £136 billion in remaining payments stretching out to the early 2050s. These are payments public bodies are contractually locked into. Hospitals, schools, councils, government departments. Paying for buildings that in many cases were constructed twenty or thirty years ago. And the terms are extraordinary. PFI contracts were structured so the private sector would not just build the facility but manage its services. Cleaning. Maintenance. Catering. Portering. These services are bundled into long-term contracts with built-in inflation increases that the public sector cannot renegotiate, cannot exit without paying massive penalties, and often cannot even fully scrutinise because of commercial confidentiality clauses. In one case raised in Parliament, a hospital was charged £333 to change a lightbulb. That isn't an urban myth. It was cited in Hansard. The NHS has been hit hardest. According to parliamentary analysis, the capital cost of NHS PFI projects was around £13 billion. The total repayments are estimated at around £80 billion. And the peak of NHS PFI annual repayments isn't even here yet. It arrives in 2029. The bills are still going up. In 2020-21, NHS trusts paid £457 million purely in interest charges on PFI contracts. Not services. Not maintenance. Interest. In the last five years, NHS trusts have handed over more than £1.8 billion in PFI interest alone. We Own It calculates that money would have covered the starting salaries of over 50,000 new doctors. One NHS trust, Essex Partnership, has reportedly paid back 27 times what was originally borrowed. Some hospitals are spending more on PFI repayments than on medicines for patients. And remember, these repayments come out of the same NHS budget that's supposed to fund patient care, staff, and equipment. Scotland got it just as badly. Audit Scotland reported that Scottish taxpayers will pay a cumulative £40 billion for PFI assets worth just £9 billion. North Ayrshire Council will have paid £440 million by 2038 for four schools that cost £83 million to build. Now here's what makes this worse. Many of these contracts are starting to expire. The buildings are being handed back to the public sector. And the NAO has warned of significant risks around the handback process, including cases where public bodies were dissatisfied with the condition of assets being returned to them. Decades of payments. And some of these buildings may come back needing significant further investment. So what actually happened? The government could have borrowed money at significantly lower rates to build these hospitals and schools itself. Sovereign borrowing has always been cheaper than private finance. Instead, it paid the private sector to borrow at a premium and passed the inflated cost on to the taxpayer. The private sector took the profit. The taxpayer took the risk. The buildings are now ageing. The debts are still being paid. And the services that were supposed to benefit are being squeezed partly because so much of their budget is locked into contractual obligations they cannot escape. PFI wasn't investment. It was an accounting trick. A way for governments to build things without the borrowing showing up in the national debt figures. It made politicians look fiscally responsible while loading future generations with obligations they had no say in and no ability to renegotiate. Both parties did this. The Conservatives created PFI in 1992. Labour massively expanded it after 1997. More than 700 projects were signed. The coalition eventually wound it down. The current government scrapped the latest version. But the contracts remain. The payments continue. And the damage is already done. This is what it looks like when a country chooses to buy its infrastructure on hire purchase instead of investing properly. You lock in above-market rates for decades. You lose control of the assets. You tie the hands of future governments. And when the bill keeps coming due, you're told there's no money for doctors, teachers, or social care. There was always money. It just went somewhere else.