Unlike Labour, their work for the general election, to quote the chair of the party’s finance committee, Tim Clement-Jones, is already “stretching our fund-raising capacity to the limit”. While their accounts are in good shape, the party needs every extra penny they can get if they are to fight the next election on anything remotely approaching a level playing field – hence initiatives such as targeting Asian businesses for support.While the Liberal Democrats have not put a foot wrong politically, the three parties’ accounts show it is power or the real prospect of power that brings in the money. Accounts released to party delegates in Brighton for the annual conference this week show that Tony Blair has had a galvanising effect on the party’s financial as well as political fortunes.
Last year, delegates are told, Labour’s general election fighting fund doubled to pounds 4.5m. While they grapple to bring it down, Labour is putting millions aside for the next general election. Labour is well on the way to supplanting the Conservatives as the wealthiest political party in Britain. The Tories may have the highest income – and historically have been able to count on more cash than their rivals at election time – but they are now paying the price for running up a huge overdraft in the early Nineties. Alternatively, young people who signed up for Labour’s planned environment taskforce would be allowed to keep their benefits plus pounds 20, again subject to the day-release requirement.Under the fourth avenue, Labour would relax the so-called 16-hour rule to enable young people following approved full-time training course to keep their benefits.But firing a warning shot across the bows of his party’s left wing, and in a rebuff to the Liberal Democrats, Mr Brown will deliver one of the strongest denunciations yet of Labour’s “tax and spend” image.

Cash from the one-off “windfall tax” on the private utilities would be used to help the “forgotten generation” of jobless young people find work, Mr Brown told BBC’s Breakfast with Frost programme yesterday.Private-sector employers would be offered a pounds 60-a-week rebate for six months for each person taken on full time under the age of 25 and unemployed for six months – on condition they guarantee one day off a week to study for National Vocational Qualifications.For non-profit voluntary sector jobs, young people would be allowed to keep their welfare benefits, averaging pounds 55 a week plus pounds 20, again on condition that they are allowed one day a week day-release for NVQ study Graduates would be exempted from NVQ work. Our objective is nothing less than the abolition of youth unemployment.”
The package to help 620,000 unemployed people aged 18-24 will form a manifesto commitment at the next general election. Disclosing a four-pronged package of measures for the under-25s on the conference’s opening day, Gordon Brown, the shadow Chancellor, will tell delegates that the “fate of this generation of Thatcher’s children – now Major’s young unemployed – is a human tragedy on a colossal scale that affects millions of families. Labour will today make a firm commitment to earmark pounds 1.4bn for youth job creation and training, while setting its face against shopping lists of “irresponsible” spending commitments.

“As a test case, this will be the most closely scrutinised hospital in the country.” And he rejects claims that the scheme heralds the privatisation of the NHS. “This hospital will be part of the NHS and treatment will continue to be free. The only difference is that staff will not be public sector employees.”Whoever wins the contract, the Government wants to conclude the process by next April so that the hospital can open before the next election and ministers can use it to bolster the case for private-public sector partnerships in the health service.. They are concerned that a private company will bring in new employees or try to force down the wages of existing workers to increase profits. They also question how the health board will guarantee existing standards of care.Mr Hartnett insists standards will be “among the highest” in Britain. That would be an unprecedented act of vandalism.”The proposals also worry local medical staff at Arduthie and Woodcott.

“Never before has an entire NHS clinical services contract been offered to the private sector. If a private company wins this contract, it will mark the end of the centrally planned and resourced health service – which has provided cheap, high-quality care across Britain for 50 years – and the beginning of a fragmented, privatised and ultimately more expensive service. They argue that if the private sector builds and runs the new hospital, more public money will be available for other NHS projects.But doctors’ leaders and opposition MPs bitterly oppose the plan They insist it threatens to destroy the NHS. Dr Sandy Macara, chairman of the British Medical Association, argues that “the very essence of the NHS” is at stake in Stonehaven. But top-quality private companies want to invest here right away.

By using these firms, we can get an NHS hospital quickly and at no extra cost to the public.”Scottish Office officials, who are the driving force behind the initiative, agree. Frank Hartnett, general manager of Grampian health board, said: “With Treasury constraints on spending, the public sector cannot fund this project now. Firms will make their bids next month and health managers will announce the winner early next year. Because it is an NHS contract, treatment will continue to be free.Health authority officials are turning to the private sector because they argue it can act faster than the cash-starved NHS. GPs will provide the in-house medical care but the health board will ask private firms to bid for the pounds 2.5m annual contract to supply all clinical and ancillary services, including nursing.Although Grampian Healthcare Trust, the local NHS provider, is also expected to submit a tender, observers say that, with ministerial support, a private company is set to win.