Graham Watts is Chief Executive of the Construction Industry Council, a member of the Construction Leadership Council and Chair of the Building Safety Competence Foundation.
Trade-offs and compromises are part of all government policy. One day’s priority can easily be eclipsed by the next day’s events. As a recent example, Ed Miliband has been stressing the government’s manifesto pledge to veto new fossil fuels extraction in the North Sea but the pressure on energy prices caused by the war in
In February, Timothée Chalamet said to his fellow actor Matthew McConaughey, as part of a CNN and Variety town hall: ‘I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera or things that are, hey, let’s keep this thing alive even though it’s like no one cares about this thing anymore.’ The studio audience laughed
For most of us the term R&R means the promise of rest and relaxation but for anyone associated with the Palace of Westminster it stands for ‘Restoration and Renewal’, a long overdue process that has already been subject to several reports and an Act of Parliament. While parliamentarians have dithered, creating committees and writing reports,
The misjudgement over Stamp Duty which led to Angela Rayner’s resignation as Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, may be deeply embarrassing for her (and her party) but it will likely save her from the embarrassment of failing to achieve the government’s target of delivering 1.5 million new homes by 2029. In an interview on
Popular opinion has always been able to make or break a production but until the 21st century that was generally a verdict delivered through the box office. Nowadays, people power can kill off a production before it has even made it to rehearsal, let alone sold a ticket. This modern phenomenon appeared to have claimed another
Iain Mackay, a former ballet dancer who is now artistic director of the Royal Ballet School, told the Times in a recent interview that ‘bigger ballerinas… are the future of the art form,’ and that ballet ‘has moved away from the “slim” female fixture.’ It’s essential that we move away from ballet students being body shamed
Angela Rayner’s lunchtime announcement to the House of Commons, giving details of the government’s response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s final report, was a week earlier than the Prime Minister’s commitment to respond to the Inquiry within six months of its publication on 4 September 2024. Frankly, it’s the only deadline that has been met
The government’s decision to demolish the remaining hulk of the Grenfell Tower, announced on Wednesday evening by Angela Rayner at a meeting of victims’ families and survivors, has inevitably attracted mixed views and controversy. Grenfell United – an amalgamation of groups representing survivors and the bereaved families of Grenfell – immediately issued a statement, saying there had
At approximately 1 a.m. on Saturday, 16 November, Vladimir Shklyarov fell to his death from the fifth floor of his apartment block at Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment on St Petersburg’s Vasilyevsky Island. He was 39. That much is true. How and why he fell will be the subject of ongoing conjecture, perhaps for years to come.
The BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing returned this weekend, but rather than being met with the usual fanfare there is a growing feeling that the glitter ball may have been irreparably tarnished. Some former contestants have alleged that they were subject to bullying by their professional partners and – having already used almost 300 contestants in
Today’s long-awaited publication of the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry provides a forensic account of the ‘root causes’ of the tragedy that led to the loss of 72 lives. More than seven years since those awful early morning hours of 14 June 2017, Sir Martin Moore Bick’s 1,694 page report represents another traumatic
How annoying must it be to win an Olympic title but be totally eclipsed by a competitor who failed to win a single contest? Such has been the fate of Ami Yuasa of Japan who defeated Dominika Banevič, the reigning World and European Champion, to win the Breaking gold medal at the recent Olympic Games.
Wallowing in the cosy entertainment of Strictly Come Dancing has been a staple Saturday evening ritual for millions during the autumn months of the past 20 years. For the BBC, it’s a prized cash cow, having been exported (under the Dancing with the Stars brand) to around 60 other countries. It’s a show built on
Judging by the welcome uplift in commentary around the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the popular western view appears to be that the war began on 24 February 2022. However, that aggression – the largest incursion by one European country on another since the Second World War – was just an explosive
The acting commander of the Azov brigade, Major Bohdan (pronounced Bogdan) Krotevych, is a hero in Ukraine. In last year’s Siege of Mariupol, he and 2,000 men – together with civilians and other units of the Ukrainian armed forces – held out for almost three months as defenders of the Azovstal Iron and Steel works.
Tucked in the margins of the recent Eurovision Song Contest was Jamala’s 30-second cameo of 1944, her winning song from 2016. Recently ranked third by The Guardian in the all-time list of Eurovision winners, her song almost didn’t make it to the contest when Russia tried to have it banned. Jamala’s lyrics referred to Stalin’s
Throughout the Cold War, ballet was the gilded bridge that connected the USSR to the West. World leaders visiting Moscow were routinely taken to the Bolshoi Theatre, a stone’s throw from the Kremlin, to see the great Russian dancers, such as Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya. The latter described her experiences as being a bird
Michael Gove’s building safety announcement today addresses the two contrasting problems of the cladding scandal, but fails to provide any convincing solutions. On the one hand, the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (with the unmemorable acronym DLUHC – apparently pronounced ‘de-Luck’) has finally brought to an end the
The government’s Building Safety Bill has been a long time coming, but its publication today offers little certainty for residents caught up in Britain’s cladding scandal. For leaseholders, the bad news is this: many will remain trapped in buildings cloaked in combustible external wall systems. Despite the housing secretary Robert Jenrick’s insistence that the new system
The death of Liam Scarlett was confirmed in a brief message from his family on 17 April. On the previous day, the Royal Danish Theatre had announced the withdrawal of the 35 year-old English choreographer’s Frankenstein from their coming season due to allegations of inappropriate behaviour dating back to 2018/19. It was the last of
