The ultimate political lever that governments can use and oppositions cannot is the power of action. Governments can make things happen; the Opposition can just talk about it.

But that is a double-edged sword. Because the power to do things comes with accountability for when they are done badly, or not at all. Sometimes that can scare ministers off; in government, there are always more reasons not to do things than to do them.

You might hope that when politicians and their parties have been in office for a long time, that they would know their way around the system and understand how to make the great machine work to produce the results they desire. But often the opposite happens: they become bogged down in process, slaves to the natural conservatism of any established clerisy, which sees virtue in how things are, and is suspicious of change.

So instead of action, ministers can take refuge in process – in discussion documents and impact assessments, in expert reports and endless, endless consultations with “stakeholders” – many of whom, incidentally, have a stake in influencing the outcome to their own advantage, and not necessarily the public’s.

“It is the law of Inverse Relevance,” says Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Minister. “The less you intend to do about something, the more you have to keep talking about it.”

Recently there was a series of high-level meetings in Government, among Ministers and advisers, about the year ahead. It was stressed how much 2026 had to be........

© The Irish Times