I was talking to my accountant recently as I had to get my tax forms in pdq. He was telling me about a plumbing firm client which had gone bust. The owner had tried everything. He had been buying bathroom equipment from France and when the Euro and Sterling had changed places he was in trouble.
He had even undercut others to keep the business going but, to no avail, the bank foreclosed and he lost virtually everything, a couple of properties, his business and the bank was still after half his house.

I remember Mike Stanton of Briggs & Forrester saying that he was concerned about tenders which vastly undercut his so firms could stay in business but which would only delay the enevitable demise of those companies which tendered so low but caused other stable firms problems in the meantime. And now Peter Lewis of Shepherd Engineering Services has said much the same.

I was always taught to get a few quotes and go with the one you can work with even if he was dearer or the dearest.

Everyone has an 'I bought something cheap' story and found out the hard way that cheapest is often the quickest route to the dustbin.

During the years since I have been editor of HVR, I have puzzled at construction industry. There have been innumerable chances to change the way that work is bought and paid for.

I just about remember Sir John Egan. His document - what was it called? - was going to revolutionise the industry and so was Sir Michael Latham and schemes such as Partnering and ProCure21 and, well, all the others.

But none of it seems to have lasted. Yes, there are pockets where these schemes have worked, are still working and will go on working but not for most of the industry.

And there is our new cure-all construction tsar Paul Morrell - can he really sort out the problems of the construction industry in a three-day week? - who will, if he gets it right, need government to listen to his answers.

But before all this, the reason that much of the previous work has failed is that government has taken a laissez-faire attitude when, as one of the biggest developers, it should have been taking the lead, embracing the new order and leading the charge to a new, better, construction industry.

Instead, successive governments have treated construction as a necessary evil, good for the country but peopled by men with dirty hands, muddy boots and soiled trousers.

There is a new government due soon. But will it have the will to sort construction? Who knows? Either way Morrell gets paid.