finance contracts were first put together.” was talking to the head of public assets at oxfordshire county councilllion, way before, three orfour months deal with carillion, way before, three or four months before the first profits warning last year because they said the work simply was not good enough. is that the kind of thing the government should have been aware of? what is astonishing, and i think your correspondent just astonishing, and i think your correspondentjust pointed this out, is that the government was still signing new contracts, right up until september of this year, which is bonkers! because we knew the share price was sliding and everyone in the city knew what was going on. the debts were piling up, the bank loa ns were the debts were piling up, the bank loans were piling up on the government was still signing contracts. that is why i have suggested, and i will suggest this in my column tomorrow, this was something like a ponzi scheme because if you give out new contracts, you give confidence to the company that it can survive, and to the market that it can survive. so each time