Unintended consequences of regulation

What politicians set out to do when drafting and implementing regulations often turns out quite differently than intended. The current rush to legislation bears all the hallmarks of over-hasty and ill-conceived rules that could come back to bite the hand that drafted them.

The regulation of economic activity is without doubt the most irrelevant and unrewarding to the public endeavours. Almost everyone is opposed to it in principle; its justification always relies on the unprepossessing case for the lesser evil. Promulgation and enforcement of laws and regulations is by grinding bureaucracies which are ceaselessly buffeted by criticism. In recent times it has become obligatory for the regulators at every opportunity to confess their inadequacy, which in any case is