The issue is not that things are being given to private companies that are mates with a Tory. The issue is that too many of these things are turning out to be given to private companies that are mates with a Tory where no basis exists for believing they can deliver, when other, qualified companies exist. Or, as in Serco's case, with no penalty clauses in place if they don't.

Again, for clarity: using the private sector isn't a problem. Corruption is. Failing to get results is.

I'm all up for chucking money at a big problem and sorting out the mess later, but this is a depressingly predictable mess, and chucking money at the problem bought us a demonstrably worse outcome than we should have had.