As I sit to write, the coalition government has just completed its first 100 days in office. ‘100 days’ is a device often used by the media to make early assessments of new governments, and this time it was no different. Somehow, it seems designed to inject even more of a sense of urgency into proceedings and there is an implicit assumption that pace has to be the order of the day – as ever, the 24/7 news agenda makes it seem so.

Well, it is true to say that our new political leaders do seem to be young men in a hurry – at least that much can be said of David Cameron and Nick Clegg, if not Kenneth Clarke! It isn’t just the new generation, though, that have taken to high office with great pace and zeal – there are other examples, most notably Eric Pickles, who has attacked the previous policy regime of his Department of Communities and Local Government with great gusto from day one.

Even before fresh pictures from the government art collection were hung on the ministerial walls (although his choice of a Hockney is a fine one), Pickles made clear statements in favour of providing financial incentives to householders to recycle and of abolishing the provision enabling councils to pilot pay-as-you-throw schemes. This was also before his colleagues in Defra managed to make an announcement about a waste policy review for England, although they appear to be catching up fast.

Elsewhere across government the story is similar – we have huge policy revisions and new initiatives coming out of our ears, much of which is music to ears attached to those supporting political and constitutional reforms, recovery of civil liberties, restoration of the link between earnings and pensions and other Liberal causes. However, the overriding spectre of policy changes precipitated by spending cuts and deficit reduction clouds the welcome progress in other areas.

It is often said that the best time to implement major policy change is in the fresh, early days of a new government, before ‘events’ take over. Even though I am hungry for political changes and remain impatient about the general lack of urgency bedevilling particular policy issues (especially climate change), I do wonder whether there are times where a little less pace and a little more consideration might be in order?

We have been here before. In a past time when the desire for stronger policy on recycling targets led to a weight-based target, one of the key responses was a huge rush for separate green waste collection, adding to the recycling rates as well as the total tonnage collected. A well-intentioned policy ended up having a distorting effect and now provides a challenging platform for its review, especially as in some areas the growth of green waste recycling has masked the limited improvement of dry recyclables collection. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but political demands at the time pushed policy in a direction that may not prove sustainable in the long term.

Today, the early political rejection of pay-as-you-throw schemes and the pre-policy review support for ‘recycling incentives’ may prove to be rushed decisions that result in policy that is just as unsustainable. The same could be said for other areas of policy where pace and dogma seem to be winning ahead of evidence and consideration. There are many examples, but the removal of support for speed cameras, the abolition of the Sustainable Development Commission and the scrapping of Regional Development Agencies (at least where they have worked, such as in the Northern regions) would be close to the top of my list.

Shakespeare has Emilia describe Othello as ‘rash as fire’. My plea is not for our politicians to quell the fires but to smoulder a bit and take time to more roundly consider the implications of their early, perhaps rash announcements.

And we’ll leave the story of the tortoise and the hare for another day.