Except that, for both the public and private sectors, PPP has become the gift that keeps on taking. Through what misty eyes must Chancellor Brown, in his 1998 spending review, have seen that his new device would "remove the need for public subsidy from 2000-01" and how disappointed must he be now, as the entire system perches on the edge of collapse - with billions of pounds in costs and liabilities about to revert to the public pot.