When Gordon Brown was chancellor of the exchequer, he was notorious for padding his Budget statements with little ruses to win over narrow groups of target voters. Now he is UK prime minister, he has established set-piece events where he gets to repeat that trick, announcing new pico-policies, nano-schemes and micro-pilots. Only in this job he does not have the tiresome duty of describing the country’s dreadful fiscal position.

In his latest relaunch, setting out the government’s draft legislative programme for the year – under the brand of “Building Britain’s Future” – Mr Brown has announced a plethora of new measures. Most of the new promises are reheated commitments from years gone by or reworded performance targets.