All Leader articles – Page 29
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CommentOur predicament
Both parties admit that the axe will have to fall on public spending soon, although politicians have been too squeamish to describe this in detail
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CommentWhat can you get for £1.5bn?
Hard to say how many votes it will win him, but Gordon Brown’s £1.5bn contribution to the Homes and Communities Agency deserves a few cheers from the construction industry.
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CommentIs partnering dead?
“It took 12 years to put together and 12 weeks to dismantle.” That was one of the more wry comments on BAA’s decision to turn its back on framework agreements for a good chunk of its work
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CommentPower without responsibility
“This meddling member of the royal family is a black stain on our democracy,” wrote one reader of Building’s website
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CommentOne last big push
Pat McFadden, Lord Mandelson’s deputy in the Commons and a Cabinet attendee, has acknowledged that construction’s representation in Whitehall is a joke, and that a chief construction officer is needed
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CommentSometimes a great notion...
They say great ideas have three phases: first, they’re ludicrous, then they’re wrong and finally they’re obvious
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CommentWhy nobody wants to buy
Tumbling fees, dwindling workloads and payment periods stretching beyond the horizon
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CommentWe should listen to the cynics
We’ve heard a lot in the past week or so about people who follow the letter of the rules but not their spirit. Rather too much, in fact
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CommentArchitects, take a bow
Prince Charles didn’t say he’d employ Lord Foster to make over Highgrove – that would really have been a great way to make up with the modernists
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CommentThe prince and the profession
So is he about to aim another missile at the architectural profession? Or will he finally offer it an olive branch?
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CommentWe need better politicians
Surely efficiency savings have to be made by working with the supply chain: after all, the government has been saying just this for 10 years
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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.”