David Nutt’s resignation, followed by that of two more members of the Advisory Council he chaired, was demanded by Alan Johnson, and welcomed by Chris Grayling.
Let’s set aside the rights and wrongs of drugs policy for now. What we should be clear about is what independent advisors are supposed to do. They should set out the scientific evidence in order that ministers have robust evidence on which to base their decisions. There is no point in appointing independent experts to report factual evidence if, when their conclusions fail to meet a political imperative, their evidence is dismissed out of hand.
This particular Advisory Council appears to be in a similar vein as the proposed Office for Budget Responsibility. I’ve previously argued that there could be a situation where ministers say that the political outweighs the evidence – for example, I would argue that the political imperative to keep the 50p tax rate currently carries more weight than economic arguments over how much it will raise.
Ministers always claim that they are making policy based solely on evidence. From what I’ve read of this case, I am not sure that is so here. But sometimes, I think that policy can and should be based on political judgement.
I want government experts to argue strongly for evidence-based policy. I want them to give us – the people who pay their wages – the real facts. I want them to be straightforward and honest with us. I can entirely understand that this is often politically unwelcome; and (while disagreeing with Chris Grayling’s approval of the sacking), I can understand why the politicians are closing ranks on this one.
I think the real answer is for politicians to be more honest. Why not say, “look – ideally, we make policy based on evidence, but we know that politically X is just not going to fly; public opinion is against it, and we just have no idea what the social implications would be. So we’re making a political decision on this one. ”
Remember the furore over knife crime statistics, when a political advisor released the figures before they had been fully approved by the independent statistician? There is no point in having independent experts unless they are allowed to be honest. And don’t you think that a politician who admitted that he was being political might not gain a bit more respect than one who ties himself up in knots pretending that he’s being entirely non-political?
It would be a radical change to the way politics works at the moment. Under Labour, it’s always ‘we know best, let us take the responsibility away from you, but it’s ok because we’ve got an independent expert to say it’s for the best.’ I think that voters are so sick of the way that politics currently ‘works’ that it would be a revelation for us to be treated like adults and for politicians to be upfront about why they are doing something. Because of the way that Labour in particular have spun their way through the last 12 years, no-one really believes that any advisor is actually independent any more anyway. Acknowledging that there are shades of grey and changing the way that expert advice is used might at least mean that there can be a real debate.
There are debates to be had about the best way to achieve the ends we all want – and I’d rather we had them openly rather than stitching up backroom deals or fudging the issue by pretending we all agree all the time. We don’t, and that’s why there’s more to politics than a purely managerial approach.
We elect our representatives to assess evidence, to assess public opinion, to assess the overall effects and to govern in a way that does the most good (or at the very least, the least harm) to the greatest number of our fellow citizens. Otherwise what’s the point of elections and manifestos and campaigning and ideas?
We might as well just appoint a bunch of bureaucrats to manage us rather than wasting all this time and money electing people with ideals and beliefs.
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I managed to put this rather more succinctly in the PoliticsHome survey this morning: ‘Advisors are there to give advice; politicians need to base their policies on more than just evidence; if Alan Johnson can’t make that argument that’s his problem.’
I supported Alan Johnson in my own blog because I agree with him that Nutt had moved from the point of being an independent expert to being a campaigner in the political sense. My only criticism of the Labour Party in this particular instance is their slowness in acting: they should have kicked him out when he came out with the “equasy” paper in a professional journal.
Ideals? Beliefs? The last person in British Politics who had Beliefs was Margaret Thatcher. The next just MIGHT be David Cameron. We shall see…..