London Racing Club

This is how we fight back showing these extremists for what they really are we don’t shy away we take them on

So this is lovely The vast majority of greyhounds love to run but there are odd ones out And they make fantastic pets too #RetiredNotRescued

Racing people/friends. DO NOT click the ‘vote for my podcast’ link or any of the follow ups you’re getting in DM’s. Presume that’s how these hacks keep happening

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.

This is Jane Dodds who is the politician responsible for getting greyhound racing banned in Wales This level of abject incompetence should not be allowed in public service Frightening

@NUFCTOON1892 @Josh_HW I can tell you this for sure, docility is quite a rare quality in a TBred!

@Josh_HW Amazing what you can do by rearing and conditioning a docile animal from birth. 🤡

Urgh, another video of shocking racehorse abuse! You can't tell me these animals are well looked after and loving life, what a sorry existance! 😉

Today I sent an open letter to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, @lisanandy — calling on the Government to pause the implementation of financial risk assessments for bettors until a proper evaluation of the Gambling Commission’s pilot scheme has been published and made available for scrutiny. I am deeply concerned by recent reports which have highlighted the pilot’s apparent lack of transparency and efficacy. Coverage of my letter is in the Guardian: theguardian.com/sport/2026/apr…

@AtTheRaces Well done @AtTheRaces . Excellent news.

🚨EXCITING UPDATE🚨 Free replays from all UK and Irish racecourses including Newmarket, Cheltenham, Aintree and Leopardstown are now available on the At The Races website and app. Take your form study to the next level. Watch all the races on At The Races!

Heartbreaking. A 10-year-old Afghan boy resists and tries to escape sexual assault by a Taliban commander. Thousands of Afghan boys are victims of this practice called bacha bazi, where they are forced to dance and then abused by older men.

THEY REFUSED TO STOP AXEL RUDAKUBANA BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK Absolutely horrific They didn't want to "racially stereotype him" These people belong in prison

We want everyone to feel able to talk about their mental health issues And we want everyone to know that some people will choose not to Which is why we should be keeping an eye on family and friends Ask how they’re doing

@johnoconnell6 I know!

@RacingLRC Not a bad night on Thursday! Go on Ryan!

NEW JOB ALERT! 🤩 🗣️ Tom Ward Racing are currently recruiting for a Racing Secretary to join the team for Maternity Cover! This is a brilliant opportunity for an organised, detail-oriented, and proactive individual to join a fast-paced racing environment. To learn more about this role, click below 👇 🔗 | jobs.careersinracing.com/job/336632/rac…

Write to your MP HERE to back British racing: saveourbets.eaction.org.uk

What a sign 👏👏

Lofty making the most of every moment. So very proud of him...

@charlie_lawson1 @racingblogger Not till the Autumn now, Charlie!!

@racingblogger Get back on and disembark at Prestbury!!!

I’ve just arrived in Stockport. What’s the best thing to do here?

For @ggcouk - my pinstickers’ guide to the Grand National, or at least it claims to be. news.gg.co.uk/tipping/grand-…

📝 In our latest blog, you can read more about why affordability checks will be so damaging to British racing and what other steps we have previously taken, and continue to take, to oppose the policy. Read more: britishhorseracing.com/new-blog-affor… #BackBritishRacing #SaveOurBets

British racing has today sent an open letter to the Secretary of State for @DCMS, Lisa Nandy MP, calling on her to pause the introduction of affordability checks on having a flutter. #BackBritishRacing #SaveOurBets