Far too many rules - is it any wonder so few want to play?

Feb 11 2003 By Bill Midgley, The Journal

In what now seems the dim and distant past, I used to enjoy playing rugby. It was a simple game, really, until the introduction of a whole range of rules which made the game so complicated, that unless one had played it from birth, it became almost impossible to understand.

Towards the end of my playing career I attended a referees' evening, where I realised referees considered themselves far more important than players. And that the whole reason for a rugby match was to satisfy referees' aspirations and particularly the promotion system they had developed.

The players were merely there to provide the means to fulfil referees' ambitions.

I simply had misunderstood the basis of the sport, as did most of us.

That message has an echo with Government departments and their attitude to business.

It's an old message, but one which has to be repeated.

All of us - including the Government - agree that we are over regulated, but nobody does anything about it.

We fiddle at the margins, we tweak interest rates far too late - and yet the basic problems remain in business, particularly small businesses, burdened with bureaucracy.

Business blames government, government blames Brussels, Brussels blames Westminster and Whitehall, and we go around in what we rugby players would call ever-decreasing circles.

Unfortunately, the end result is that nothing or nobody disappears.

When it comes to regulation, words are not enough. Action is urgently required.

The Chancellor's Budget speeches have made great play of sweeping away red tape, yet there are few, if any, examples of how it has been reduced.

Business will tell you the contrary is the case.

World trade problems and recession may be outside of our control, but the obstacles we put in the way of business are within the control of the UK government.

Yet we bypass opportunities to do anything about it.

Regulation is perhaps our greatest growth industry in the country, hence the reluctance by many to face up to it.

But if the referee is more important than the players, then the latter may decide it's time to hang up their boots. Which may be why so many businesses are closing their doors.