The true cost of the Carillion wreckage

“We’re not doing a very good job of selling the private sector, are we?” So said an old friend of mine, among the Conservative party’s most senior advisors, as we discussed my upcoming Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on Carillion.

Back in January, Jeremy Corbyn declared the implosion of the UK’s second-largest construction firm “a watershed moment” – and, in some ways, he was right. I don’t accept Carillion’s demise seven months ago means private companies should be kept away from providing public services, as the Labour leader has argued, or that Britain now needs wide-ranging nationalisation. The state already employs a fifth of the workforce, accounting for over two-fifths of GDP – which is quite enough.

But when Corbyn seized on Carillion’s collapse in a bid to reflect and even galvanise public anger towards seemingly unaccountable big businesses, he was onto something. “As the ruins of Carillion lie around her, will the Prime Minister act to end this costly racket of the relationship between government and some of these companies?” asked Corbyn from the despatch box, during a particularly heated session of PMQs.

Carillion’s collapse exposed a vast firm, responsible for hundreds of government contracts, that mistreated its sub-contractors, neglected its pension schemes and systemically cooked the books.