The two main harms of government regulation, to be balanced against any benefits, are cost and delay. But there is another harm, rarer but lethal when it happens. Sometimes regulation perversely increases risk by lulling the regulated business or people into a false sense of safety.

I had this thought last weekend as I watched a football match on television. My beloved Newcastle United beat Aston Villa in the FA Cup fourth round, but the match made headlines because of five bafflingly bad decisions taken by the referee and his linesmen: failing to award two clear penalties, failing to give a red card for a dangerous tackle and failing to spot two offsides that led to goals.

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Four of the five decisions went against my team but that is not my point. Because it was the FA Cup, there was no Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to check and overrule the ref. Whereas some say this proved the need for VAR, Alan Shearer made a more perceptive comment: ‘If you ever needed any evidence of the damage VAR has done to the referees, I think today is a great example of that. These guys I think look petrified to make a decision today because they didn’t have a comfort blanket. For me, they’re actually getting worse.’ In other words, the introduction of new technology to help referees has made them less good at their job.

The same thing happened in the run-up to the financial crisis. There was plenty........

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