The UK government's call for regulators to come up with growth ideas is easily met with caricature. It’s not entirely foolish to bring regulators to the attention of potential changes to their remit – but only if you’ve also consulted those who know what it’s like to be regulated. As is often the case with this administration, the signals here are confusing.
Governing is hard. There is some schadenfreude among veterans of previous governments that Labor has come to realize this after six months in power. When Sir Keir Starmer railed against what he called "the tepid bath of controlled decline", he expressed the frustration felt by every new prime minister. But in his case, the lack of a clear governing philosophy made things worse.
The ministers in the new government are energetic and hard-working. But there is little cross-reading. The Cabinet feels more like a group of individuals with very different views of the world than a team producing a coherent analysis of Britain's problems and responses.
We might feel optimistic hearing the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster vow to “make the country more like a start-up,” the Minister of Science and Technology raving about artificial intelligence, or the Minister of Health talking about patient choice. The Education Secretary made a very different impression, trying to turn back the clock by scrapping two decades of cross-party policy to improve schools. The deputy prime minister's massive workers' rights package has further undermined business confidence, despite attempts by the Treasury to restore it.
All ruling parties are coalitions of interests. But the level of inconsistency in this case makes it difficult to determine where the administration will take on any given issue. This in turn makes it difficult to build trust.
The argument of Angela Rayner's Employment Rights Bill is that part of the reason for Britain's low productivity is job insecurity. In light of this, some of these measures seem reasonable: abolishing the "fire and rehire" practice that imposes new terms and conditions on workers, helping the self-employed to get paid on time, and softening some aspects of zero-hours contracts. But the bill also contains a range of other rules: about the right to sick pay from day one, about parental leave and unfair dismissal rights, about stronger trade union powers and other rules that are central to Starmer's stated growth mission Directly contradictory rules.
Insecure work can indeed be detrimental to productivity. But so is no job at all. The Independent Regulatory Policy Commission slammed the government's impact assessment of the bill as "not fit for purpose" and warned the measures would harm low-wage workers. Business surveys suggest the bill will accelerate investment in technology rather than talent. Of course, the complexity and scale of the new rights means that an entirely new regulatory body will be created to oversee them.
The business community's reaction to the rise of National Insurance has left Ten and the Treasury alarmed and deeply anxious about recent economic news. You would think they would be outright opposed to the jobs proposal. Instead, a weak compromise of a nine-month trial period was proposed on the issue of unfair dismissal.
Considering what the plan might do to workers' prospects, only two groups clearly benefited: lawyers and unions. A similar story applies to the Department for Education's Schools Bill, with Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson appearing to be acting as a freelancer and not connected to anything the rest of the government is doing.
Philipson wants to repeal reforms launched by Labour's Andrew Adonis, who grew up in care, and later pushed by Conservative Michael Gove, the adopted son of a Scottish fish processor. These reforms have propelled England's schools up international rankings, making them among the best in the world. They are based on the twin principles of creating academy schools with more freedoms, such as paying better teachers to good teachers, and demanding greater accountability through league tables. Academies become tools to turn around failing schools.
Phillipson wants to eliminate much of this but has no compelling alternative ideas on how to raise standards. Her answer to what to do with a school rated "inadequate" seemed to be to replace the term with a broader term that wouldn't give parents the same clarity
None of this makes any sense. Some improvements could be made, such as a review of multi-academy trusts. But why change a system that already helps so many of the poorest children?
On the investment side, Labour's majority brings some much-needed political stability. But investors also need to have confidence in the consistent direction of policy. They also need an educated and flexible labor market. Ignoring this seems unwise, to say the least.
Unlike Boris Johnson, Starmer is neither lazy nor chaotic. But like Johnson, he found these ideas, some of them really bad, filling any vacuum at the center. In meetings, he was known for looking for solutions rather than problems. But in Whitehall, the toughest issues move up the system until they reach the Prime Minister's desk. It's hard to drive this machine without making it clearer what he wants.
Camila.cavendish@ft.com