Nice instincts, shame about the actions. That might seem the most apposite conclusion to draw regarding the first six months of Junichiro Koizumi's time as prime minister of Japan.
The telegenic Mr Koizumi swept to power in late April, promising a rapid revolution, and in a spirit of optimism - and surprise - foreign investors and diplomats enthusiastically cheered him on. But now the cheers have been replaced by suspicion that Mr Koizumi is turning into a damp squib. Although he promised rapid change, he has produced few concrete signs of policy reform.
True, he is making a few token efforts to overhaul the system of public finances: this autumn's supplementary budget contains less spending on construction projects and focuses instead on sensible steps such as widening the unemployment safety net.
Mr Koizumi has also made admirable statements about shaking up Japan's vast public corporations, such as the state road building company. But he has failed to produce a practical timetable for changing them. In the area most foreign investors regard as the real test of change - forcing Japanese banks to get serious about removing their bad loans - the performance looks patchy at best. The Financial Supervisory Agency (FSA), the main banking watchdog, lost considerable credibility in the past six months by appearing to deny the scale of the problem.
The key to understanding what is happening is to realise that the prime minister is a man with admirable instincts - but little idea about implementation.
What is good about Mr Koizumi is that he seems to recognise that something is fundamentally wrong with the way Japan has operated in recent years. More important, he knows that the country's problems are not just economic, but political. What has most harmed Japan in recent years has been the way a set of conservative vested interests, such as the construction sector, has had a stranglehold on the distribution of resources.
It takes courage for Mr Koizumi to attack these vested interests verbally - not least because they nurtured him in recent years. But it is precisely because he has done this that he has become so popular with the Japanese public. The bad news is that Mr Koizumi seems unable to turn this rhetoric into prompt implementation. This is partly because the position of prime minister wields less power than comparable roles in western countries. It also reflects the fact that part of Mr Koizumi's Liberal Democratic party opposes him. But the other problem is Mr Koizumi himself.
He is not a policy wonk. Nor is he a hands-on manager. Instead, he seems a born delegator, and therein lies the crux of the problem. His current team of officials seems badly equipped to deliver the type of practical, co-ordinated policies the country needs.
Finance minister Masajuro Shiokawa, for example, shares much of Mr Koizumi's instinctive desire for change, but has a limited grasp of macroeconomics. Hakuo Yanagisawa, financial reform minister, has a vested interest in defending the FSA policies, since he helped to create them three years ago. And though Heizo Takenaka, economics minister, has a sensible reform-focused vision, he lacks the political authority to deliver what Japan most badly needs - co-ordinated monetary and fiscal policies.
Meanwhile, the bureaucrats who advise the cabinet appear as much of a hindrance as a help.
Some passionately share Mr Koizumi's instinctive desire for change. But the reformers face a structural problem: the bureaucracy is riddled with vested interests and power divided between dozens of competing institutions.
While plenty of people in the system can veto an idea, very few can initiate change. To make matters worse, most officials hold their posts for only a year or two and thus have little incentive to take risks.
The prime minister's problems stem partly from his own success: if he had not created such a dazzling reform image earlier this year, foreign investors would not be so disappointed now.
The real moral for the next six months is that the outside world should pay closer attention to the power balance of his cabinet. Rumours are now buzzing in Tokyo that Mr Koizumi may be considering a cabinet reshuffle, with Makiko Tanaka, Foreign Minister, and Mr Yanagisawa considered vulnerable. But what Mr Koizumi must urgently find, above all else, is a hands-on manager. He needs the political equivalent of a chief operating officer. Perhaps nominations should be e-mailed to the cabinet - in a sign of his popularity Mr Koizumi has put contact details on the Web at www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/ index-e.html.
