All Leader articles
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InsightHope versus housing
Labour’s attempts to portray itself as the party to get Britain building have begun in earnest, with a couple of policies floated so far that appear surprisingly bold and more than a little divisive.
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News
Thinking beyond the box
A few years ago, the mainstream media became transfixed by the prospect of self-driving cars, when it seemed as if either Tesla or Google spin-off Waymo might imminently bring such a thing to market.
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News
Reckoning for rent reforms
The tabling of the Renters’ Reform Bill this week begins the formal process of scrutinising the government’s proposals, which already feel as if they have been debated endlessly.
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Insight
Let’s not be lizards
The incomparable Douglas Adams, much-missed author and satirist, died 22 years ago this week. The passing years have not blunted his many sharp insights. Take, for example, his view of the political animal, outlined in the fourth Hitchhikers book, when the dialogue turns to an unhappy democracy of humans ruled ...
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Insight
Will King be a royal influencer?
This weekend we will witness a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle: the coronation of a king. A six-gun salute will be fired from Horse Guards Parade to mark the exact moment the crown touches the monarch’s head and the UK will be alive with colour and noise. But behind the pomp and ceremony ...
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News
Good eggs vs bad apples
The most recent annual report issued by the Confederation of British Industry, for the year ending 31 December 2021, set out the principal risks faced by the CBI at the time.
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Insight
Are we there yet?
Pick any random word – ‘elbow’, for example – and repeat it often enough and it will start to sound weird and meaningless. The phenomenon is often noticed by young children (and weary parents) when questions get repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated.
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Insight
Industrial & Logistics: Another level
There is a child-like quality to multi-level logistics schemes, with their boxy designs split over several levels or storeys.
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Insight
Inflation proves tricky
Futurist and author Arthur C Clarke famously observed that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This ‘law’ of science and progress was first postulated 55 years ago and is now widely acknowledged to be true.
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Insight
Apologies not accepted
Tuesday’s annual general meeting of Credit Suisse featured a lot of apologies. Chair Axel Lehmann told investors that he was “truly sorry” for the events that led to its takeover by rival UBS. “I apologise that we were no longer able to stem the loss of trust,” he added, after ...
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Insight
The time is always now
On my desk is a coffee mug, given to me by industry veteran Harvey Soning, decorated with a prayer to the almighty: “Let there be one more property boom. I promise I won’t piss it all away this time.” The mugs have been around for at least a decade, but ...
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News
The future’s bright (honest)
Maybe it was the weather. Warm sunshine bathed Mipim last week, sweeping away the industry’s gloom. The chatter in all my meetings was arrestingly upbeat – albeit with shades of that Monty Python song about the bright side of life.
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Insight
Mipim: plus ça change?
I am by no means a Mipim regular, and my first impression on arrival at this year’s Cannes jamboree was that a large section of the UK had been displaced en masse to the south of France. The number of English voices contributing to the hubbub in the busy cafés ...
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Insight
The bottom line for diversity
I am writing this on Wednesday, International Women’s Day, which serves as an annual reminder that everyone in a position of any kind of power needs to consider gender equality every day, not just once a year.
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News
Don’t underestimate EVs
Tech titan and former world’s richest person Bill Gates observed, in the hastily rewritten second edition of his mid-90s book The Road Ahead, that the future often catches us napping.
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Insight
Planning a sustainable future
This week we learned who will shoulder the perhaps unenviable task of leading the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC). Architect Smith Mordak will take over from outgoing chief executive Julie Hirigoyen in June, at a time when the industry’s hunger for leadership in sustainability has never been more intense.
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Insight
Safe as houses?
The terrible aftermath of last week’s earthquake has been difficult to watch on our TV screens. The scale of the tragedy, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives in Turkey and Syria, is numbing. It is impossible to imagine how it feels to witness or experience such devastation first hand.
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Insight
Rise of the robots
The year has started with one question firmly front of mind in the industrial and logistics (I&L) space: has the bubble finally burst or is the sector merely experiencing a temporary dip?
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Insight
Wood you believe it?
Last week I chaired a Property Week half-day conference as part of our Climate Crisis Challenge campaign, held in a suitably sustainable venue: The Office Group’s recently completed Black & White Building in London’s fashionable Shoreditch.
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Insight
The circle of life sciences
This week I learned a new word, although I’m not sure it’s a real one that has made it into any dictionaries. ‘Cycology’ is the belief that events will run in predictable cycles, with the implied hope that you can make better decisions if you can see where you are ...
