All Leader articles – Page 29
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CommentAbout all we could hope for
The Budget might not have been all that the industry would have wished for, but for a country facing its biggest public debt since the war, it was about what you’d expect
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CommentSending out an SOS
When Alistair Darling delivered his pre-Budget report in November, most firms were hoping that it would launch a lifeboat they could clamber aboard to wait out the worst of the recession
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CommentU, V - or W?
There was a definite mood of optimism at the Building Awards last Thursday. Lots of people had a real reason to celebrate, of course, but the mood change was caused by more than champagne
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CommentA horror story
But what really infuriated the colleges and their teams is that the organisation continued to push them to spend their own money on projects that were effectively doomed
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CommentClients: what are they like?
Which clients deserve a medal? Which should be shunned like yellow dogs?
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CommentBlackening our name
What is it with this industry? Just when you think we’ve left the Dark Ages well behind something comes along to remind us what a short step we are from dodgy and outdated working practices
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CommentGoing public
The government’s decision to bring out its cheque book yet again – this time for the PFI – is a massive fillip for the industry
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CommentWe need a strategy
“It’s all very well calling for a Keynesian programme of public works to kickstart the economy,” wrote Rachel Sylvester in The Times on Tuesday, “but JM Keynes did not have to deal with the PFI.”
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CommentOne hell of a job
So are we all agreed, then? What the government needs is a construction industry that is able to turn public investment into buildings and jobs
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CommentThis is an emergency
The argument this week over whether Ed Balls meant to say we were in the worst recession for 100 years may have caused mild hysteria in the media, but it won’t have raised many eyebrows in construction
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CommentThe skyline just got safer
When Building launched its Safer Skyline campaign almost two years ago, the crane industry was in crisis
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CommentOur agenda
The recession is not without its fringe benefits. I, for one, have pounced on the opportunity to stop my children’s pocket money (even as I type these words they are combing west London in search of work, and the lessons learned will no doubt prove as important as schoolwork).
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CommentGet the mechanics right
The delays to the Learning and Skills Council’s £5bn programme to upgrade further education colleges is a stark reminder of the reality gap between the government’s desire to accelerate public programmes and its ability to actually make this happen
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CommentNot a problem, a solution
Like collaborative working, being sustainable was a child of the boom years.
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CommentHappy new year (yes, really)
Sorry, folks, but joyful prospects for 2009 are thin on the ground
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CommentSleeping through it all
When we published our third issue of this year with the cover line “The slump of 2008”, few of us could have predicted just how quickly the water would rise around the construction industry.
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CommentThe path to power
With most markets sectors descending vertically, work on a third generation of nuclear power plants can’t begin soon enough.
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CommentBetter than nothing
So much was expected of the pre-Budget report that if Alistair Darling had opened up the Bank of England’s vaults and invited construction firms to help themselves, there would have been a few commentators arguing that he should have gone further.