Carillion crisis shows why we should take City fat cats out of public services

Carillion is a tragic situation for the workers and families affected by the latest corporate mess.

It has an impact locally and nationally. Senior executives and the fat cat bosses rake in huge bonuses at our expense but have left a trail of destruction with small and medium firms in every sector now floundering and put them. Thousands of workers have been left on the brink as businesses face the threat of going under.

Lets hope the workers, both public and private, get the financial support they need. Meanwhile the banks, who were bailed out at such vast cost in 2008, are pretty quiet.

There must now be an independent public inquiry which leaves no stone unturned. Corporates and politicians should be held fully accountable for their actions and decisions over the last three decades.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly attacked government policies and called Carillion a “watershed moment”.

In the wake of the collapse of the Carillion, a massive government contractor which is Britain’s second-largest building firm, it is time to put an end to the rip-off privatisation policies that have done serious damage to our public services and fleeced the public of billions of pounds.

Tory politicians ignored the warnings for months – and some of these warnings were profit warnings which are meant to act as a red flag.

Was the Conservative government asleep on the job or simply stuffing the pockets of their friends whilst it was possible – legally possible I might add – while they had the chance.

Over the last 25 years, successive governments they have had a love-in with these huge firms. Under the Tories the political mantra is “public is bad and private greed is good.”

John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown must all take some responsibility, followed by David Cameron and Theresa May. Indeed it could be said that Blair paved the way for more outsourcing by ditching Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution. That moment became the green-light for privatisation of our public services, in place of public ownership for the many.

Now much of our public sector has been hoovered up so local services like school meals, the operation of the railways, building contracts for schools and public housing, and the running of prisons, are all frequently delivered by the private sector.

Governments and local councils have ignored the public’s wish to refrain from the folly of outsourcing and PFI contracts that are massively hiked. The agreements are like paying off a mortgage but on a credit card. It has meant the fleecing of workers and taxpayers while those at the top get their pockets lined with telephone number salaries, bonuses for failure and other perks.

Politicians were told to change and implement public policies – but that fell on deaf ears.

Last week’s National Audit Office report showed taxpayers will have to cough up £199bn for schemes under the flawed Private Finance Initiative (PFI) over the next 25 years.

It is time our public services were brought back under public control. Taxpayers should not just be left to pick up the tab when providers go bust – or to bail out Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin’s gravy train on the east coast line.

We have also seen a major rip off in the water industry, which Labour has pledged to nationalise. Now let’s put a stop to outsourcing and PFI.

Ged Dempsey is Unite member and Labour activist in Wentworth.