Being of a certain age has advantages; such as remembering when Michael Heseltine, then President of the Board of Trade (Secretary of State for Business really, he loved a grand title) announced the 'largest bonfire of controls that has taken place in modern times in this country'.
Designed to root out and burn any unnecessary red tape and set British business free it was launched in 1994, so a year later I contacted his department and asked how many pieces of legislation had been put to the torch and what they were. The answer was 20 and I think I remember correctly that 18 were ‘Trading with the Enemy Acts”; from 1939.
That is, emergency legislation introduced at the start of WW2 to make dealing with German and Italian firms a criminal offence, none of which had been used since 1945, by definition, nor had it bothered a single British business since.
The bonfire of red tape like all other such campaigns before and since failed for one simple reason; most rules, regulations and controls are there for a good reason. We regulate banks more these days because their under-regulated collapse in 2008 nearly broke the world’s economy.
I mention this as the Brexiteers are now calling for another bonfire, what goes on it they don’t seem to know and what the consequences for safety, health and the economy are they don’t know either. Meanwhile new red tape at Britain’s borders is adding £7 billion a year to the costs of British industry, according to the Government.
https://jonty.substack.com/