And this is the fundamental problem: it allows us to dodge a broader long-term industrial strategy, precisely because the short-term labour fix is so easy.
We kick off a ConservativeHome project on strong families, better schools and good jobs today – indispensable means of achieving a smaller state and a stronger society.
I suspect that in creative industries, a four day week could have little impact on productivity. But it is simply doesn’t apply to process-driven jobs, such as housing benefit claims or planning applications,
In terms of fiscal policy, if the wider economic picture does not allow the debt to GDP ratio to fall, then the focus of the markets will be on the need to keep the public finances in shape.
My note of caution is that if the Government changes the rules on ratios now, the noise about it will drown every other positive thing we try to do.
The Chancellor, too, is right to focus on using incentives to encourage those who can work to remain in the labour force and this should figure prominently in the March Budget.
Turning complaints about headline figures into a detailed programme to bring them down would teach us a lot about whoever tried it.
If all young people who are received support as effective as Spear, it would mean 130,000 young people moving into employment, simultaneously filling over 10 per cent of the vacancies that are so troubling British businesses.
We need our Conservative government to do what it does best: provide a path to prosperity and empower people to get back to work.
We need to give more time and resource to those bringing up children. Such parents need a much better package from the state to look after a baby in the first year of its life.
Is he fated to be a fire-fighter, a leader grappling with crisis? Or can he find the political space to deliver a more personal message – perhaps to do with education?
A lower tax burden will be impossible without less supply of government. And for there to be less supply, there must first be less demand.
These may take time to bear fruit, but must reassure the markets now that the growth path in expenditure will be measurably lower. Such measures must involve doing less, as well as doing things differently.
The effect of benefit policy changes on the incomes of working-age adults and children since 2010 has been an average loss of £375 per year compared with a boost to pensioners of £510 per year.
The first article in a new series on ConHome about how government might be made smaller, taxpayers better off and and society stronger – through strong families, better schools and good jobs.