TIME was when leaders said: 'Trust me.' Now, they are more likely to say: 'Trust me - you don't have to.'
Just as we once sought a 'framework' to control the trade unions, now we seek one to control the controllers. The Human Rights Act stops them (allegedly) from violating our liberties, the Bank of England Act stops them (again allegedly) from debasing the currency and multi-year spending reviews keep them on a tight leash (ditto) when it comes to taxing and spending.
This last is the subject of my column in today's edition of The Mail on Sunday. George Osborne puts the finishing touches this weekend to Wednesday's Budget, his fourth. But this is a Chancellor for whom the phrase 'painting himself into a corner' could have been coined.
Here are some of the self-imposed restraints within which Mr Osborne must operate.
One, the ring fencing of assorted funds including those for the health service, overseas aid, schools and defence equipment.
Two, the failure on day one of the Coalition to take emergency powers over local-government expenditure - and expenditure cuts. This has left about 15 per cent of public spending in the hands of people some of whom seem to prioritise expenditure on items such as 'gender-neutral' public lavatories at a time of supposedly pitiliess austerity.
Three, the truly crackers decision (again at a time of scarcity, to use Nick Clegg's own word) to make the State responsible for things for which Ministers had declined to make it responsible during the good years - care of the eldery and of the children of working parents being especially egregious examples.
Four, deliberately (I would guess) refusing to come down on one side or the other in terms of presentation and strategy, i.e. is this an emergency administration or just another post-Cold War government but with a little less money than those of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown?
These are tough constraints, none of which had to be there. Real-world, external constraints, such as the fact that our economy is going sideways and our workforce is unproductive, poorly-educated and litigious, ought to have been enough to be getting on with. Maybe Ministers thought no-one would trust them to sort out these problems unless they shackled themselves as noted above.
The trouble is, said shackling then makes it harder for them to do so.
Thanks again for reading and enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Going South: Why Britain Will Have A Third World Economy By 2014, by Larry Eliiott and Dan Atkinson is published by Palgrave Macmillan