From the spivs point of view the PFI scam is vastly superior to plain old fashioned privatisation because in the olden days under more fair minded leaderships such as the Evil Thatcher Junta, spivs were made to pay a token fee for control of huge slices of public infrastructure, typically a tiny proportion of the value of the assets. Under PFI the government is obliged to pay the spivs five or ten times the value of the assets in rent during the privatisation process.