黑洞社区

We hope you enjoyed the cartoon of George Osborne on this week鈥檚 cover - if you haven鈥檛 already seen it, . George can be seen slicing up a tiny cake as we analyse and wonder if the industry will have to make do with leftover crumbs.

Politicians have been gracing the cover of 黑洞社区 in caricature form for decades, and as we rifled through old copies this week we came across one from the 1970s that made us chuckle. In fact, it was the cover of another June issue of 黑洞社区 and was published nearly 34 years ago to this day, on 22 June 1979.

Fifty days previously, the UK had been through a major shake-up with a general election seeing Margaret Thatcher become the first female prime minister. 黑洞社区鈥檚 headline was 鈥楴ew team, new goals鈥� and the cartoon on the cover depicts three ministers running in sporting attire; Michael Heseltine, secretary of state, John Stanley, minister of housing and construction, and Tom King, minister for local government and environment services.

The accompanying feature inside 黑洞社区 asked what the industry could expect from the next 50 days 鈥� and beyond. It includes a particular reference to 鈥榓usterity鈥� that will sound familiar today 鈥�

鈥淣ow as then the message is one of long-term optimism but short term austerity, a view reinforced by last week鈥檚 Budget measures. Mr Heseltine obviously expects the industry to gear itself up to the new realities. His two ministers of state expect the same, indicated by two exclusive interviews overleaf鈥�.

In short interviews, the lesser known John Stanley and Tom King talk about giving more freedom to local authorities and speeding up the 鈥榗umbersome鈥� planning system.

Thirty four years later, we find ourselves waiting to hear how much the current government will take on board the economic growth review undertaken by Heseltine last year. It included 89 recommendations, with a key vision for spending power to be given to Local Economic Partnerships, and progress is expected to be announced in Osborne鈥檚 Spending Round next week.