That is, it’s possible to regulate something so much that the protections aimed at disappear.

We do - no really, we do - wonder what goes through minds like these: UK urged not to exploit poor countries in rush for critical minerals

We await the usual insistences as a result of this story: Thames Water refuses to rule out a hosepipe ban as drought looms.

One of those differences between political, bureaucratic, action and markets. In a market environment the Dodd Frank rules on conflict minerals would be dead and buried now.

The only correct answer to that question is that we’re all as rich as Croesus.

Back in the mists of time the British Government hired Sir Nick, now Lord, Stern to produce a great big 1,200 page report on climate change.

A little example of what near everyone gets wrong about trade.

We’ve spent most of the last century with the people of this country stating they’d like to live in houses with a nice front and back garden - and the planners, the authorities, insisting that they’re going to build flats, apartments, for everyone.

Covering car parks with solar panels. Well, OK. From direct observation it is possible to note this is much more common in Iberia than the UK.

Note what the actual claim is though. In their analysis of whether environmental laws hold up building the government has not pointed to any academic evidence that it does so.

We’ve suggested before that Big Government has allowed every fool with a prejudice to impose that upon the other 75 million of us.

This isn’t what Baroness Batters - formerly head of the National Farmers’ Union - means to say but it is what she does say: Batters said: “One of the long-term and growing challenges to farming is that land is often more profitable for anything else, other than producing food.”