We all know that all good things must come to an end but you often find that by the time something has run its course, it’s no longer considered quite as good as it once was.
Take plug-in electric power tools. They must have been a revelation when they were invented. But as we discover on page 42, corded power tools are now almost obsolete and battery powered tools already account for 80% of sales.
Something else that seems to have reached the end of its useful life is the current Conservative government. Ever since Boris Johnson’s election victory of 2019, events in Westminster have unfolded like a train crash in slow motion. After the Johnson farce, the Liz Truss premiership was like a waking nightmare – at least it didn’t last long. Then came Rishi Sunak to the rescue, a seemingly sensible and competent leader at last. But this autumn’s events have demonstrated that the Tories no longer have what it takes.
An accumulation of missteps – the handling of the RAAC debacle; the watering-down of net-zero policies; the failure to lift nutrient neutrality restrictions on developments; the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2 – drew withering criticism from all sectors of UK construction.
Then last month the Conservatives suffered two of the most humiliating by-election defeats in living memory. A general election is possibly less than a year away. And it looks like voters are ready to pull the plug on this government before they suffer any more nasty shocks.