Ah, the 2004 article quoting an unnamed official talking to someone else. Well let's just call that a tad unreliable shall we?

The Guardian, the BBC and the Mail all have it at a maximum of £12.7bn, and I'll ask it again, how much of that was wasted?

The Grauniad and the BBC.............. enough said.



The Mail is a comic.



Even so, as I said £12bn is bad enough. As for how much is "wasted", then the truth is we don't know. However, it's fair to say that with hindsight, the project would never have been started. It's an example of Labour waste.

Not a lot, according to [url=http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/nhs-npfit-lorenzo-csc-governmennpfit-89224THIS[/url

I don't assume that. Things do go wrong and I am sure when they set out to implement that system it wasn't the intention to fail though £20bn is not a figure I think is realistic anyway. The point I am making is the structural deficit that Labour ran for six years pre 2008 isn't the source of the problem. Had the 2008 crash not occurred this would have been easily manageable and you would expect them to have worked to reduce it anyway as Darling said was the plan.



In my opinion the current governments focus on the structural deficit reduction is as much political as economic. They want to reduce the size of the state and the current crisis is the excuse. The trouble is unless they can get some real growth in the economy any reductions they make to the structural deficit are going to be eaten away by having to fund the recession. This cost is already huge and so compared to pre-2008 the government has to borrow at three or four times the level than back then. It is not having to do this because it inherited a bad NHS IT system or anything else from Labour.

But how much waste? It started at £20bn, we're now down to £12bn, and then you don't know how much was wasted. So you don't like the Guardian, the BBC or the Mail? How about the Telegraph? They have it at £11.4bn. How much of that was wasted? Come on, this goes to the heart of your argument that the debt and deficit is a result of wasteful Labour spending.

But do you think it prudent economic judgement (a term that Brown used to pin himself to) to assume that the economic boom would continue year after year?



Don't you think that a truely prudent Chancellor would have made provision for a downturn?



Of course the Conservatives wish to reduce the size of the state? Doesn't everyone with an ounce of economic sense? Surely no-one favours a large public sector in this day and age?



You also still don't make a decent counter argument to the fact that there will be a time lag between spending and the deficit materialising.



e.g. had Labour managed to do what they promised, and "balanced the books over the economic cycle" , then the borrowing requirement now would be greatly reduced.

Well if you read the link that you posted, you will find that there is very little consensus on how much is wasted.



"Despite the risks, in September 2011 the UK government announced that the £12.7 billion scheme will be “urgently dismantled”"



This implies virtually all of it.



The "latest" is that some "may" be saved.



The truth is the number changes all the time. The reality is that at least "some" will be wasted and maybe all.

I didn't post a link.



If there is very little consensus then how can you say "maybe all" is wasted? I can categorically state that not all of it was wasted because I was peripherally involved with it whilst I worked in the NHS.

So, the truth is you don't know how much of the £20bn...sorry £12.7bn...sorry sorry £11.4bn is wasted, which begs the question as to why you included the entire £20bn figure in your argument as to how much Labour spending was wasted?