Blogs

There's been a lot of publicity about a Financial Times poll of economists which suggests that the recession in the UK is over.

I know I'm a little behind the times on this issue as it really broke last week but I've been mulling it over in my head since and it doesn't become any clearer.

The city is a fickle creature isn't it.

Well, I suppose it could have been worse.

Where's it going to end? First Connaught and now Rok, the latest high-profile building services company to go to the wall. The repercussions of failures such as these stretch far beyond the hundreds of job losses - the administrator announced 755 to go at Rok just this morning. As our story on Monday shows, the…

So, cheers all round at yesterday at Wolseley, the world's biggest plumbers merchant. Having been the subject of some very mixed reviews over the past two or so years thanks to the collapse of the housebuilding markets here and in the States, the news for the group is very definitely better.

So the redoubtable Ed Balls has decided that it would be a good thing for the building and housing markets if the Coalition Government were to reduce VAT to 5% on housing repair, maintenance and improvement.

Well, it's a start. The Government launched its NewBuy scheme on Monday which, it hopes will boost sales of new build houses and bring in new jobs to a construction industry that desperately needs them.

It being party conference season there's been the usual avalanche through of ideas that the various parties have had for boosting a) the economy and b) - probably rather more importantly in their leaders' minds - their chances of election next time round.

So, that nice boy George Osborne has been urged to slash the VAT rate for the building industry in today's Budget.