Labour couldn’t fund its PFI and nationalisation plans – or get them through the courts

SIR – Listening to BBC Radio 4 yesterday morning, I laughed aloud when the shadow health secretary said that Labour must maintain its reputation for financial prudence.

This was in relation to the announcement that private finance initiative (PFI) contracts would be bought out. “We are bringing them back,” John Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, had announced to a joyful audience.

When questioned, the Labour health spokesman didn’t seem so certain – not surprising, as most were signed under Gordon Brown.

As far as I can see, the means of buying out these contracts is to offer gilts (government debt) in exchange. The same method is to be used to nationalise the railways, water, power, etc. This would add up to hundreds of billions.

If Labour tried to borrow this on the open markets, I don’t think there would be a rush to lend. The effect would be that the value of the gilts foisted on the owners of the contracts and the value of the shares in the target industries would be less than the notional value. Many Corbyn supporters might think this a good thing, for ideological reasons.

Whether Corbyn could get this through the courts is debatable. If I were he, I would want to get as far from the EU as possible. The EU is in favour of privatisation, rather than the opposite, and a chunk of the assets in question are owned by Europeans. Indeed, EDF is partly owned by the French state, which would probably see the whole thing as a swindle.

What would the European Court of Justice make of this? I don’t see a Corbyn victory here. Bernard Ideson

Keighley, West Yorkshire

SIR – Labour scores again. PFI is an infamous scandal; everyone knows it. Peter Richards

Poole, Dorset

SIR – John Mcdonnell wants to put a stop to the £200 billion of PFI payments that fall due over the next 40 years. Where was he 10 years ago, when Gordon Brown was still cranking his PFI “free money” printing-press to keep Labour’s profligate spending off the government balance sheet?

Labour plainly has no shame. Keith Phair

Felixstowe, Suffolk

SIR – Shadow ministers need to be reminded of Margaret Thatcher’s dictum: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Charles Hanson

Wetheral, Cumbria

SIR – I read with horror your report (“Corbyn’s head in the sand over anti-semitism”, September 26) that in a fringe meeting during the Labour Party conference, Israel was compared to Nazi Germany and activists discussed expelling Jewish groups from the party.

It appears that anti-semitism is thriving in the Labour Party. This is a wake-up call to all Jews in England. If Labour gets into power it is time to leave en masse. Only then will Labour realise what we as a group have contributed, in medicine, science and technology, literature and the arts, as well as finance. Marta Josephs

Newcastle upon Tyne

SIR – Labour has an excellent record of causing the Government great difficulties with the use of sound bites. Notable examples include the naming of the “bedroom tax” and references to changes in the tax arrangements for the elderly as a “dementia tax”.

The latest Labour sound bite claims it is the “government-in-waiting”. But this is a double-edged sword that could undoubtedly cause the party many difficulties.

Interviewers could start every question with those words and expect a straight answer, which opposition parties are usually loath to offer. Tom Newman

Stroud, Gloucestershire