Labour's PFI pledge would be expensive – but isn't a blank cheque | Larry Elliott

Taking contracts ‘back in-house’ would mean compensation, but John McDonnell left himself a get-out clauseThe private finance initiative was the live now, pay later method of building hospitals, schools and other bits of public infrastructure. Governments that were short of cash could get companies to put up the cost of shiny new investment and pay the money back in instalments over many decades.But as John McDonnell stressed in his speech to Labour’s conference, PFI has proved