The only area of public spending which was cut overall in the first two years of this government was capital projects. The Coalition inherited large forecast cuts in capital from Labour. They abated the cuts a bit, but carried on with the main thrust of them. It has been a bone of contention

Belfast City Council announces an investment programme worth £233m over the next three years, £150m of which will go on building projects.

Slovak politicians head into March elections embroiled in a massive corruption probe prompted by the publication of an alleged intelligence file code-named 'Gorilla'. It suggests that members of leading political parties colluded with financiers in privatisation and public procurement projects. EurActiv Slovakia reports. More »

Finishing a book manuscript, and so haven't had much time for serious blogging recently.  Nevertheless, would like to drag everyone's attention to Dmitry Gorenburg's excellent series on Russia's military relationship with India.  First part examines naval, second part ground and air, third part joint projects. There's a lot of interest here.  From a strategi...

At the end of the parliamentary session MPs take the opportunity to air their pet projects.

The European Commission presented today (30 November) its €80-billion research funding programme for the decade - Horizon 2020 - with the aim of boosting research, stimulating innovation and simplifying the way scientists and smaller businesses can get funding for EU-backed projects. More »

The chancellor will use next week's Autumn Statement to switch some government spending from current to capital spending, Chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander says.

Scotland's finance secretary urges UK Chancellor George Osborne to borrow billions of pounds to fund major projects.

Today's New York Times has a fun piece about Google X, the secret lab where Google is working on its special projects. The ideas are, suitability, far out. They are, apparently, looking at connecting household appliances to the internet and creating a robot that could go to the office so you don't have to. It would be tempting to laugh if not for what Google has already pulled off. Indee...

Half a billion pounds of public money will be used to help developers complete stalled housing projects, ministers will announce today.