It has recently become an obsession of the Government to put what would have previously been policy targets into law. We already have a "legally binding" target of cutting carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, and today's Queen's speech lays out further plans to put legal guarantees on education, public finance and child poverty.
This is both pointless and meaningless. The Government have long been accused - accurately - of Governing by press release, but this is taking it to the ultimate absurdity. They used to announce long term policies of the top of their heads in order to grab the next day's headlines. Now they are actually introducing full legislation to achieve that same aim.
As well as a waste of time and money in Whitehall and Westminster, this is damaging to democracy itself. For a start, there is the clear intent to attempt to bind future Parliaments. Happily, the constitution does not allow that to happen in strictly legal terms but the rhetoric of "setting this in stone permanently" is clearly pushing in that direction.
At best, they are effectively boobytrapping the statute book for future Governments - delaying them implementing their own policy and legislative agenda by requiring them to defuse a series of obstructive laws before they can even start doing what they want.
Even worse is the disillusionment that this foolish PR tactic will undoubtedly spread amongst the public. Most people already do not believe the pledges that politicians make - their repeated betrayal of such promises has cheapened their word until it has become in most cases utterly devalued. Instead of working hard to regain popular trust in their pledges, the Government have instead tried to wrap themselves in the authority of legislation in a desperate attempt to persuade people to believe them.
That approach will simply cheapen people's belief in legislation and Parliament, too. Just as with MPs' expenses, our politicians would rather tarnish the standing of our democratic institutions than admit and correct their own failings.
The really infuriating thing is that the Government itself doesn't even believe that these targets will be hit, as legally required. They don't even care - as long as it has the desired effect on the content of next week's fish and chip wrappers, then job done. If the target is hit or not when the arbitrary date comes round, it will matter not a jot to them - particularly as they will be comfortable on their pensions, or even long dead by the time.
