Anyone else preparing their little list?
It’s not true that all and everything done by past governments is or has been wrong. Sadly, government can’t even gain a perfect record in that, being wholly and totally wrong always. But it is also obviously true that some things done by past governments were not good, not right, even not worth doing.
It has just reversed its ban on oil and gas exploration. It has liberalised its mining laws, sparking a boom in mineral production. And it has even scrapped a planned ban on smoking to help generate tax revenues for tax cuts elsewhere.
Ever since Christopher Luxon replaced the liberal-Left hero Jacinda Ardern as prime minister of New Zealand, the country has been setting an example for what a “post-woke” economy looks like.
It has started unwinding many of the key policies championed by the Left – and if it works it will set a powerful template for the UK and many other countries to follow.
One of the things we’ve insisted upon over the decades is that a grand value of markets is that they kill mistakes. In a way that government - or planning, or bureaucracy - does not. This therefore means that in non-market sectors of the country and economy we have to pay more attention to, devote more effort to, reversing the mistakes made by those who came before.
We also think that this is a mistake made by near all incoming governments. Sure, sure, lovely plans about how to make the place better. But very few about unpicking the mistakes made by predecessors which are making the place worse. Perhaps more attention should be paid to doing that therefore? Even, rather than a manifesto of lovely news one listing the execution of olds?
Our list would and does start with blow up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Proper blow up - kablooie.
So, who else has what addition to such a list? We’ve plenty of ideas but that whole wisdom of the crowds idea does rest upon the fact that you out there will always know more, collectively, than we few in here. So, what?
Tim Worstall