LABOUR come to power wearing Tory clothes, sweeping to a landslide majority, promising a new style of doing politics.
Sound familiar? We thought so, too. Those words could have been written in 1997 or just this month.
Among the similarities is Labour’s bright-spark plan to turbocharge investment by backing private money with public cash. Your cash, that is.
When we read about Labour’s plans for a national wealth fund, or the “investment vehicle” of GB Energy, we thought we heard echoes of another Tory-esque get-rich-quick scheme – one that left taxpayers on the hook for billions the last time they were in power.
We’re talking about private finance initiatives, better known as PFI.
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Labour's PFI scandal
Once hailed as a panacea for boosting public spending without the tricky bit of taking on tonnes of debt, proponents of the scheme were given a nasty dose of reality when it turned out the state was picking up the tab while private firms pocketed huge sums.
The idea has lain dormant for years, with past Tory governments preferring to use different models of state spending, which also included the private sector.
But with “changed Labour” looking an awful lot like new Labour, we ask – have the party really learned the lessons of the past?
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What to expect
In our new series, we’ll be putting the party’s spending promises under the microscope, as well as shining fresh light on where it all went so badly wrong the last time around.
There'll be interactive data-led articles, putting all those big numbers into easily interpreted graphs and charts, as well as expert analysis. We'll also be running live streams with our top journalists and commentators.
So, make sure to check out the paper in print and online from Monday to Friday for a special limited series exploring all of this and more.
And don't miss out - make sure you're subscribed at thenational.scot/subscribe to get full access to this important series.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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