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Tag: David Cameron

George, if you are dredging dodgy policy ideas from old blogs, get the timing right

George, if you are dredging dodgy policy ideas from old blogs, get the timing right

“20% discount on your first home announces PM” reads the press release headline describing one of David Cameron and George Osborne’s latest moves to keep their mitts on the tiller of power. Ostensibly it’s a new bold initiative to give a leg up to 100,000 wannabe first-time buyers. Desirable, you might think. In reality we all know it’s yet another policy aimed at a key but unsettled element of the electorate to ease fears about their potential or the potential…

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Northstowe and why I am so angry with George Osborne

Northstowe and why I am so angry with George Osborne

The Government’s plan to commission, build and sell 10,000 homes at Northstowe just north of Cambridge have been heralded by some in the media as radical. It hasn’t been done since the 1970s. That anyway is a line taken by a slice of the media as it absorbs carefully-crafted press releases that complement the thin detail in the National Infrastructure Plan 2014. Unsurprisingly as we head deeper into the run-up to a General Election, the media was duly given some…

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How seriously should construction take Cameron’s “red light” warning?

How seriously should construction take Cameron’s “red light” warning?

The Prime Minister decided yesterday to highlight dangers of a fresh global economic crisis. This will impact on the UK construction sector. How much? Who knows? His words printed in the Guardian were: “Six years on from the financial crash that brought the world to its knees, red warning lights are once again flashing on the dashboard of the global economy.” That was a sentence designed to gain maximum media attention. In that it was a success. And he seemingly…

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Latest surveys suggest house price inflation is accelerating. That’s not a good thing

Latest surveys suggest house price inflation is accelerating. That’s not a good thing

The latest batch of statistics on the housing market have all been impressive, suggesting broad and strong growth in house sales and house prices. The RICS survey out today shows that over the past few months there has been a sustained increase in all the main indicators. A hefty majority of estate agents have seen increases in achieved prices, they expect further increases, they have seen rises in enquiries from new buyers and instructions from new sellers, and their level…

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2012 was the fourth worst on record for construction growth as output falls 8.4%

2012 was the fourth worst on record for construction growth as output falls 8.4%

So there we have it, the official Office for National Statistic figures show that Britain’s construction output fell by 8.4% last year. But how can construction output have collapsed so far so fast and there not be howls of pain and frantic action by the Government to bolster one of the nation’s more vital industries? It’s a puzzle made all the more baffling by the constant appearances on the telly of David Cameron and Nick Clegg in green boots, hi-viz…

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The trouble with handing roads to private firms

The trouble with handing roads to private firms

The Government is looking hard at injecting private capital into supporting the under–strain roads network. That certainly was one of the key messages that came out of Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech at the Institution of Civil Engineers today. This and the tone of the speech tell us a few things about current Government thinking and also raise speculation about other aspects of its approach. Firstly, the green agenda is shifting. Until recently the preferred politics had been to lean…

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What to make of the conflicting messages from the latest house prices surveys

What to make of the conflicting messages from the latest house prices surveys

As last week closed the Halifax index showed the average price of a home (seasonally adjusted) falling for the second month in a row. This contrasts starkly with the Nationwide data which earlier last week was showing a continuation of a minor surge in prices. Meanwhile the Hometrack survey released last Monday suggests that house price inflation in flagging as activity in the market slows. It is hard to know exactly what to make of these conflicting accounts and to…

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