When in doubt legislate. Tony Blair has always been in thrall to the New Labour myth of momentum politics. Not so long ago I heard the prime minister say that the government needed to mellow a bit: to think before it acted or at least before it spoke. But Tuesday's Queen's Speech, with its avalanche of new laws, will tell us that nothing has changed. Measured deliberation is not in Mr Blair's DNA.

New laws are the politicians' comfort blanket - a way to reassure themselves that they are doing something useful. A bill in the annual legislative programme is proof that a secretary of state is worth his or her ministerial limousine. One former Tory minister - a veteran of Margaret Thatcher's administration - once told me that he must have authored a dozen pieces of legislation. No, he could not remember what most of them had achieved.