Has the penny finally dropped at Whitehall? It's a truism of British politics that every party runs for election on the promise of freeing business from the dead hand of state regulation.
Now, seven years after it first achieved power, the Labour party is beginning to show some interest in doing just that with the launch of the CIPER forum (for those of you taking notes, it stands for Construction Industry Policy and European Regulation). And the reason for the sudden concern?

It seems Gordon Brown has finally caught on to the fact that capital spending on public services needs close and urgent attention (pages 24-26).

The creation of yet another industry body will undoubtedly lead to mass shoulder-shrugging and eye-rolling. But think again. This body could mark the most significant move Labour has taken since the Egan report in 1999. Not only that, it could herald the end of the Egan era itself.

As is often the case with New Labour, the move has an air of desperate improvisation – the failure to consult Peter Rogers, chairman of the strategic forum, was amateurish. Yet delve into the detail of CIPER and it does seem to mark a fundamental shift in thinking. Gone are broad targets for the industry – the technique popularised by Rethinking Construction. In its place, we have something altogether tougher: legislation. And CIPER is likely to have a big say on policy in vital areas – above all the Building Regulations, but also health, safety and migrant workers.

The CIPER was conceived by Treasury and driven by Cabinet Office, the two departments at the centre of the government machine. This will give it the authority to harmonise policies across departments. For all its efforts, the DTI has lacked oomph. Nigel Griffiths has tried his best, but just look at the progress of the quality mark. The theory behind it was that the government would create a structure and the industry and public would adopt it. Well, they haven't. CIPER is at once an acknowledgement of failure and a sign that the government is now fighting to win.

The question concerning Zaha

Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born queen of British architecture, has been elevated to the peak of the world’s architectural establishment. This week she becomes the first woman, and only the third British architect, to be honoured with America’s top architectural award – the £55,000 Pritzker Prize. As is evident in the Science Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany (pages 66-72), Hadid’s award comes at time when her style is maturing from frenetic, jagged angles to embrace more substantial curvilinear forms and flowing spaces. And, though always and everywhere avant-garde, they are also in the great modernist tradition of openly expressing the structural forces that hold them up. And it shows once more that cutting-edge architecture can create both a sense of place and a sense of excitement. So, why haven’t the British taken advantage of her world-renowned imagination?

Postscript

Phil Clark, deputy editor

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