All Leader articles – Page 29
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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.”
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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