Glad you’ve been spared almost a year of our national conversation being dominated by a looming general election? The bookies’ odds had been on a November polling date, and frankly most business folk were rather non-plussed by the prospect. “Just get it out of the way so we can focus on growing the economy” was very much the attitude we picked up at the start of the year. For once your wish has been granted, and all the campaigning noise will be over and done with before the summer holiday season.

A relief for some perhaps, but it does mean a barrage of daily updates from the political parties and indeed this week as we went to press the three main manifestos were being released for public scrutiny. It may take some time to flush out the implications of the commitments made in these lengthy documents, but already we can begin to see sentiment among construction professionals moving – cautiously rather than whole-heartedly – towards backing ideas put forward by the Labour party.