Among yesterday’s front pages was a data visualisation which, at first glance, was one of the most effective I’ve ever seen: the Independent had made an infographic showing yesterday’s £6bn budget cuts in context - as a fraction of a debt mountain.
Then I looked closer - and something’s very, very wrong.
Can you tell what it […]
Labour has a neat piece of crowdsourcing going on at the moment, under the banner of “Change we See”.
Party supporters are being asked to send photos of new hospitals, schools and sure start centres to help remind the public what Labour investment has achieved. It’s a nice idea, and it never hurts to be positive.
But - naturally - there’s a problem.
Take the photo selected for the first mailout to party members from general secretary Ray Collins:
The photo’s of the recently St Helens Hospital in Merseyside. The hospital was built as part of a £338m redevelopment of acute hospitals in the area. So far, so good.
The problem is, that £338m wasn’t investment. It was debt. St Helens Hospital was bought on the never-never, as part of the Government’s PFI scheme.
The repayments for the St Helens redevelopment, over the next 30 years, will total a huge £1.65bn. Repayments only started last year - at £30m a year. By the time of the next election, less than £65m will have been paid off, leaving future governments with over £1.5bn still to pay off.
And that’s just one of over 100 NHS PFI projects.
Yes, we have the shiny new hospital now. But it’s the next government - and the one after that, and the one after that (and so on for seven to eight government terms) that get the privelage of paying for it.
Is that really what Labour want to highlight as one of the triumphs of its time in office?
Update: See the data behind this story - and investigate your local hospital PFI - here.
Tags: featured, Labour, NHS, PFI, St Helens Hospital
