What many people don't know is that in Scotland, where the Save our NHS Group, the SNP and some "Smaller" parties opposed the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), the Lib Dems have a record of supporting PFI projects.  In fact, during their unholy alliance with Labour in power, the Lib Dems were openly supportive of PFI and its supposed benefits, and were critical of the stance taken by ourselves and others, claiming that we weren't living in the real world and claiming that we stood against a commonsense approach to public services.  They had the cheek to say that we stood for "having a District General at the end of every street".

Now, that's a bit rich coming from a party which in England has taken an altogether different stance in exploiting public concern about the future of the NHS.  While the Lib Dems have never been completely opposed to PFI in principle - unfortunately - they have tried to distance themselves from it to various degrees.  They've been very good in recent years of posturing and putting forward glib, populist soundbites on health but have seemed reluctant to come up with some consistent, constructive alternatives to the status quo: obviously ranting about effects is more their thing than working solutions.

However, hats off to Vince Cable, who is asking for public views of PFI in advance of the Lib Dem conference in October.  So, there is to be some discussion on PFI, which is timely and necessary.  I would encourage anyone with an interest in how the NHS is financed to take part in Vince's "consultation" - you can find it by clicking on the below link:

http://consult.libdems.org.uk/pfi/index.php/2007/07/30/vince-cable-your-views-on-pfi/#comments