All Leader articles – Page 44
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An industry turned upside down
Something miraculous occurred this week. The dirty, smelly, low-status construction industry suddenly became the year's hottest career option.
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Mustn't grumble
Tony Blair invited comparisons with Fraser of Dad's Army when he delivered a doom-laden new year's message, dominated by Iraq, al-Qaeda and the faltering global economy. He might also have mentioned gun crime, rail chaos, and hikes in council tax and national insurance – the latter courtesy of, er, Tony ...
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Food for thought …
e couldn't resist it. In anticipation of next week's festive feasting, our attentions turned to the traditionally less mouth-watering fare served on site. And who better to sample the pies and pasta than columnist Jonathan Meades? As restaurant critic of The Times, Meades is used to dining in rather grander ...
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Digital building is here
There's a scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise walks into a fashion boutique in 2054 and is greeted by intelligent adverts that know everything about him from what clothes he buys to what toothpaste he uses. This, say retail experts, is not inconceivable. Now substitute the mall with a ...
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Whitehall's special needs
This should be interesting. Whitehall is about to undertake a crash course in A level public procurement. A notoriously dim pupil, it has been flunking basic tests for years. But political expediency demands that it achieve top marks in schools, hospitals and transport by the next election. Head teacher Gordon ...
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Prescott under fire
John Prescott has more to worry about right now than his deteriorating relationship with housebuilders (pages 24-25). Planning chaos is a political sideshow alongside the main drama of the firefighters' dispute and the threat – amid a London teachers' strike – of a new winter of discontent. But, although no ...
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Cleaning up the pensions mess
A year after Building warned of construction's pensions time bomb, employers and staff alike are getting the jitters about the cost of retirement. Our annual Hays Montrose/Building careers survey reveals that more than half of readers are worried about pensions, and – as a result – expect to work beyond ...
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Endgame on the underground
Is it nearly the end of the line for the part-privatisation of London's Tube? A year and a half after they were first chosen as the preferred bidders, the Metronet and Tube Lines consortiums were due to finalise their deals this month. But as passengers so often find, delays are ...
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Firing the smoking barrel gang
It's easy to demonise labour agencies. The stereotype is straight out of a Guy Ritchie film: grubby back-street office, battered white van and dodgy-looking paperwork. Such outfits have no place in the world of integrated supply chains. But still, every contractor knows that if they need five brickies in the ...
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The end of the affair
Where – if anywhere – does Amey go from here? After a turbulent five months, during which two finance directors made spectacular exits, the support services firm's largest shareholder has called for the group to be broken up or sold. Amey is resisting such a move, but that hasn't silenced ...
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What's a computer for?
What is it with construction firms and IT? In the 1990s, many of the big players spent millions installing state-of-the-art systems only to find they had wasted their money. Staff didn't know how to use them, they quickly went out of date and were incompatible with their business partners' software. ...
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The unbearable cost of cover
Few tears were shed outside the Square Mile when crisis struck those apparently loathsome insurance companies after 11 September. A year on, though, insurers – in the great tradition of that industry – are passing the burden on to their customers. Now it is construction firms that face ruin as ...
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We need a New Model PFI
And about bloody time. After five years of obfuscation, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown faced down the unions in Blackpool over the PFI (see news).
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Why we're too white
So Prince Charles thinks farmers are more victimised than blacks or gays.
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What's wrong with hospitals?
What is the final great architectural frontier waiting to be crossed? Mobile prefab pods? Space stations? Walking cities? I nominate here-and-now hospitals and health clinics. Of all building types, none has the complexity of a major hospital. And none is such a matter of life and death for its customers. ...
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A bit of strategic thinking
Meet Peter Rogers, the new Mr Construction. Like his predecessor Sir John Egan, he is a top client and, although not exactly one of Tony's cronies, he's in the New Labour loop. But that's where the similarity ends. Egan, who made his name at Jaguar, was always the outsider; Rogers ...
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We're sadder, but are we wiser?
So, has the worst building collapse in history changed construction? Everyone, including this magazine, seemed to think so in the aftermath of 11 September. As Sainsbury's cancelled its twin 40-storey towers in London, we suggested that skyscrapers would lose their mystique, and that the generational shift from building outwards to ...
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You had to be there
It is easy to mock RIBA president Paul Hyett for rolling up in Johannesburg this week (pages 18-19). The third earth summit has "fiasco" written all over it: 60,000 dignitaries are trying to save the planet in two weeks, thereby expending more greenhouse gases than Africa produces in a year. ...
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Techno-toys r us
The evolution of home technology holds the promise that Le Corbusier's dictum, "the home is a machine for living in", will be less of a design philosophy and more of a literal reality.