Blogs

Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education, education. Well it was always a big ask I suppose. The 3 million apprenticeships that the Tories promised in their manifesto. Turns out that the actual number is likely to be somewhat south of that. In …

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity. I have had very little occasion in the last 25 years (how has it been that long?)  to write anything like the following sentence, “Travis Perkins posts pre-tax loss of £123m.” But last week I did, courtesy of the merchanting …

 Steve Rogan looks at the issues when switching employment sectors From healthcare to selling KBB products to merchants and retailers. Change can be forced upon us, or it can be something that we crave. Either way, making it happen can be a daunting prospect, especially when it involves our career. Whether …

I mean the bare necessities That’s why a bear can rest at ease With just the bare necessities of life It’s all too easy to just focus on one’s own industry but, as numerous BMF and NMBS conferences have shown us, there are lessons to be picked up from outside …

Bill Price,  National Technical Manager  at Tarmac Cement talks a lot of hot weather Britain has been basking in another week of hot sunshine, with forecasters now predicting that 2018 could be our hottest year on record. Great news for many, but those of us in the building and construction …

Cry God, for England, Harry and St George  Gareth Well, that was fun. For a few short, glorious days, it looked as though the unthinkable was about to happen. Ahh those sweet few weeks. The sun was shining, the wheel had yet to fully come off the Government’s Brexit plans, …

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown You couldn’t make this stuff up. The most surprising appointment of Teresa May’s first cabinet as Prime Minister was Boris Johnson. It was one of those things that, at the time, many people said would either prove to be a stroke of …

The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost, for none now live who remember it. The irony of all this sultry hot weather the UK is experiencing currently is that …

At twelve noon the natives swoon and no further work is done But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun We’ve had the Solstice celebrations down at Stonehenge, the annual merchant industry conference, and the first of the book-your-Christmas-party-with-us emails so it means that Summer has well …

Marley Eternit’s Katie Prestidge, on ways in which the whole industry should work together to spread the message about sun safety on site. Skin cancer rates in the UK are rising faster than in any other part of Europe, and with outdoor workers particularly at risk.   Since the launch of …