B efore becoming prime minister, Andy Burnham pledged to “end 40 years of neoliberalism”. But as he prepares for his first budget on Wednesday, his government is yet to let go of one of its most tedious cliches: red tape.

In the run-up to the chancellor John Healey’s high-stakes Commons address, the government issued a press release last week promising his plans would include measures to “slash the red tape choking firms”.

Named after the tape once used to tie up government bills, and popularised by the historian Thomas Carlyle, the phrase is straight from the neoliberal playbook and has long outlived its usefulness.

Getting the interfering state out of the way of the wealth creators was a trope of Thatcher and Reaganite economics, and on this side of the pond it has been repeated ad nauseam by every government since.

Thatcher unleashed the City with her “ big bang ” deregulation drive, and her successor John Major was enthusiastic about “hacking back the jungle of red tape”.…