After 14 years in opposition, you might have expected Labour to come into government bursting with plans for Britain. Yet the first four months of the Starmer supremacy have seen ministers commission a glut of various reviews, consultations and task forces about what they should actually do in office. Helpfully, Sky News has compiled a running tally of these. Their current figure is 61 in less than 150 days: a rate of one every two-and-a-half days. The obvious risk is ‘paralysis by analysis’.
Under Yvette Cooper, the Home Office has commissioned seven reviews on police and fire fighter pensions, knife sales, ninja swords, police prosecutions, family visas and counter-extremism. Angela Rayner’s Ministry of Housing has launched eight: on reforming right to buy and its past discounts, local government pensions, social housing rent policy, relations between Whitehall and municipal authorities, new towns, the national planning policy framework and on urban brownfield sites.
Inertia is an active choice, that often carries costs
Good government means taking decisions, even when they are hard decisions.
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