Secretary of State backs PFI

Was he shown the roads that have apparently been improved? (wrecked) What does he know about road repair? A lot less than he does about free wine and canape's I suspect !

For these pen pushers at County Hall to commit that much money and that amount of time [25 years] is madness to land on the Island people

Interesting how this Minister just assumes the Island PFI will work where others "...don't work so well" Not clear what information he is using to arrive at that conclusion.
In addition, in supporting this PFI he is therefore endorsing the structure of the Company involved... a company 50% owned by a Merchant Bank and part of which is based in Luxembourg...to avoid UK Tax liabilities. He also is ignoring serious complaints in Europe about this company who are not, it appears, performing so well there after all.
And yet he arrives at a conclusion that forces him to state the Island PFI will be a success.......Why?

phil jordan
Independent candidate

I remain to be convinced that there is no alternative to signing up to a contract whose outcomes and fulfilment is impossible to predict for a timescale that will see a large percentage of the Island pushing up daisies before it is completed. Could this be an interesting opportunity to run a referendum restricted to 16 to 30 age group on yoppul to see what the guys who are "heirs of the past and makers of the future" have to say about it all. What's printable of course!!!

No comic relief here, move on. Did anyone ask him how we will afford it at £8 million a year plus increases? 'There's no free money' - code for yes, it'll bankrupt you, but we'll be long gone by the time it hits the fan.

Does anyone know how I can invest in the offshore operation that funds this tax free PFI? Assuming they ever find somewhere to make the tar of course.

This MULTI MILLON POUND PFI contract drawn up by this council does it inclued everything ie: street furniture, verges, islands, so there will be nothing missed or the company coming back to the council saying this is extra, that is extra etc etc, and is the contract open for public viewing, can the County Press find out about this and post it up here

PFI

PROFOUNDLY FRACTURED INFRASTRUCTURE

There is no free money, but there are ways of managing and getting your roads in order

And there was me thinking that the legalised extortion that is Car Tax or road fund licence was supposed to be used for this.

"Ferries are very important to the Isle of Wight. They have already put a huge amount of investment in.

And taken a huge amount of profit out, but this is always overlooked.

Pathetic hot air as usual, nothing changes, vested interests prevail.

a part of this tax payers funded headquaters for the PFI, will be the Island hub for all the new CCTV cameras, Big Brother in action again, tie into this all these new SMART gas and electric meters, and MI5 watching all your emails,phone calls and texts/tweets and you will have TOTAL surveilance Police State, you wont be able to even go to the loo without them knowing, say NO especially to the new smart meters, which you can do, although the fitters will say that they have to, they are also a health hazard

PFI friday................................

Patrick McLoughlin? Who he?

Given the weasel words in his first sentence "We see elsewhere where PFIs work incredibly well, and some areas where they don’t work so well." how much trust can we put in his second pious hope i.e. "I have every confidence this will be a successful PFI."

OMG what a complete waste of time and space to have this ineffective minister to come over. The best way to describe this fiasco of a visit is: "I saw his lights on but no one was in"

The only revealing thing he said was that the PFI was NOT A GRANT as our council maintains.

Questions must now be raised by the CP. What exactly have the Pugh, Brown, Beynon and Love signed us up for?

Yet more hot air and inactivity from our elected officials. What happens if Wightlink go belly up? What plans are in place?

"there will always be a balance between wanting more services and the economic cost" In other words allowing big business to cut the content of their product while being allowed to raise prices, MAXIMISE PROFFITS, eyes being wiped

Ha-Ha!, Well said Mr.Buchanan, another government/EU stooge telling us how lucky we are that we have been allowed to put everyone in Debt for years

Blah, blah, roads... flannel, blah, blah, ferries... flannel, flannel... ooh, look, lunchtime already

Any views or opinions presented in the comments above are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the Isle of Wight County Press.