In a sign of the times, London’s mayor Boris Johnson has been mouthing off about the London underground PPPs as:

“a system that has not been remotely protective of taxpayer value”.

And mouth off he should, as an elected official who’s probably had it up to here listening to constituents who’ve had it up to here.

The news report in Public: Private Finance last week elaborates that: “In a report setting out plans for London transport, Mr Johnson also warned that Tube Lines’ PPP contract could suffer “contractual problems and cost overruns”.”

We’ve talked before at People outside glass houses about the EIB’s involvement in London underground’s diabolical PPP experience, where Metronet collapsed and the risk ended up in public hands (does this sound familiar?).

Slightly surreally (the normal state of affairs in PPP-land, alas), at the same time as the PPP organ was reporting Boris Johnson’s trenchant views, an opposite view was being offered by the looming headline “New construction body backs plans to accelerate PPPs“:

“The [Construction Council], which represents 24 big construction firms, said schemes such as Building Schools for the Future and NHS Lift could help counter the economic downturn.” [my emphasis]

How bad have things got? Maybe not bad enough yet? As Galbraith wrote in The Great Crash in 1955:

“As in all periods of speculation … men sought not to be persuaded of the reality of things but to find excuses for escaping into the new world of fantasy.”