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David Henig 🇺🇦 Profile picture
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Feb 1 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Afraid I don't see much that is in any way new in the government's take on regulation - we've been doing this better regulation stuff for 25 years in the UK under different governments. Evidence of results is sketchy at best, and perhaps it is time for a proper rethink.
Obviously when thinking seriously about regulation you first have to acknowledge Grenfell as the single biggest UK regulatory failure of recent years, costing lives and huge sums in remediation. That has absolutely nothing to do with being in the EU or not.
More broadly, I think the costs and benefits approach to regulations probably takes us too much into an inaccurate numbers game when we'd be better off moving towards a broad assessment of all factors - whether alternatives, trade, enforcement, timing.
I trust neither the estimated costs nor benefits given with regulations. Costs may well have been faced regardless such as from uncertainty, benefits are often broad brush and using some questionable metrics. And it is all gamed by departments in any case.
Regulation is a good example of how UK politics are currently static - stuck in old thinking and not apparent that either government or opposition have a particularly good idea of what is or isn't working, and what could be better.

Brexit and boosterism has drained politics.
Look forward to the views of several other 'ex better regulation in government' types who are well represented here!
I am asked by @t0nyyates to take the failure of financial regulation into account alongside Grenfell. Consider that done...
That's levelling up and regulation done in two days. Strong similarities - government reheating old ideas, no great vision from opposition, a politics in stasis. Where's the energy in UK politics?

(accept a covid effect of not meeting / sharing ideas)
A distinguished commentator making an excellent point, reminding me of a particular bugbear when working on better regulation in government a long time ago, tax is never included in better regulation...
More thoughts on the UK's approach to regulation.

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More from @DavidHenigUK

David Henig 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Feb 2
A new phase in difficulties over the Northern Ireland protocol in which a DUP Stormont minister instructs his officials to stop enforcing an international treaty. Impossible to know what happens next, if these continue or not, or how the EU responds. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northe…
As we can see from events in Russia / Ukraine, there is no enforcement power in international law if one party decides to breach treaties. However, we also know that it is normally the larger powers that have more scope for breach than smaller ones.
Expect a strong reaction from the US and the EU if the UK fails to enforce the Northern Ireland protocol. At a time when the US wishes to focus attention on Russia / Ukraine, such a move would not be seen in a positive light. (see e.g. Suez / Hungary)
Read 20 tweets
David Henig 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Feb 2
Supply chain problems are the modern economy. The fact the world only noticed them in 2020 doesn't make it a crisis now. We've had a pandemic in which the world has by and large continued to enjoy the goods it did beforehand. An incredible achievement. nytimes.com/2022/02/01/bus…
The question to ask is whether a different system of production and distribution would have delivered better results in response to a pandemic. Never say never, but there's no history of an alternative delivering in a better way.
The aftermath of a major shock, whether war or a pandemic, is a problematic time, as readjustment is needed. That's normal, it doesn't need some great panic around it. Not least from populist politicians liable to make things worse in their limited understanding.
Read 4 tweets
David Henig 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Feb 2
This bit is slightly interesting. Those of us who understood how modern regulation worked always said "absolute regulatory freedom" was a delusion. It can't be used, because a modern economy is interdependent with others. But that's not an acceptable message right now. Image
Slurring everyone who argued against the hardest possible Brexit as 'remoaners' effectively meant accepting an alternate reality in which pure UK regulatory control was Brexit and hugely beneficial, as opposed to the global reality of complex inter-dependencies.
For the UK to yield huge regulatory gains you have to assume that we can regulate better than other countries, that companies will choose us because of this, and then other countries will not compete. All of which are problematic. At best, we may get some limited gains.
Read 8 tweets
David Henig 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Feb 2
Lots of worthy stuff, but piecemeal devolution and funding competitions, plus lots of targets, makes Levelling Up feel like more of the same rather than anything particularly new.

Always easiest that way in government, but UK politics rather lacking in ideas right now.
Changing world, no great change in UK government thinking since 1997. Brexit as a distraction which doesn't solve many of our issues, and adds more. Treasury spending the main variable as various schemes come and go.
The UK muddling through, as the @DuncanWeldon book on our economic history has it. Still plenty of economic strengths, but uneven distribution of them a theme for many years, and there's honestly little in the levelling up plans seen so far to think that will change much.
Read 4 tweets
David Henig 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Feb 1
One for the series of 'who could possibly forecast' about Brexit - that the French might not wave all UK trucks into the country once they didn't have to do so (a big part of Thatcher's reasoning for the single market) theguardian.com/politics/2022/…
The consistent failure to admit over five and a half years that there is a choice between regulatory independence and interaction with other countries. North Korea might have the greatest regulatory autonomy of any country, in the name of sovereignty. Not much of a model though.
Brexit can't deliver while Ministers and the ultras deny there are any drawbacks or choices, because you can't fix a problem you deny. So instead we get the waffle about imperial measurements and being the greatest at absolutely everything for ever and ever.
Read 5 tweets
David Henig 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jan 31
Desperate husband pleading forgiveness after multiple betrayals by falsely saying he isn't well.
Said it before, but any Conservative MP defending Johnson is now saying that overtly lying to Parliament is fine.
Wait a few months and Conservative MPs will be arguing that a Prime Minister found to have committed crimes has done nothing wrong.
Read 5 tweets

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