Complete and Utter Zebu

The sacking of scientific adviser Professor David Nutt by Home Secretary Alan Johnson might have caused astonishment, but the government has plenty of form when it come to flying in the face of scientific advice.

In the early days of New Labour, much was made of “evidence-based policy” from Tony Blair and others. The 1999 paper Modernising Government said:

“Government must be willing constantly to re-evaluate what it is doing so as to produce policies that…are forward-looking and shaped by the evidence rather than a response to short-term pressures.”

That seems to be long forgotten. In November 2006 the Commons Science and Technology Committee pubished a report that effectively accused politicians and even the Civil Service, of abusing scientific evidence in order to tell the most monstrous whoppers, ignoring the results of the research – even if they’d commissioned it – if it didn’t support their argument. Committee Chairman Phil Willis said, “Ministers should not disguise conviction-based policies as evidence-based.”

In 2005 junk food and vending machines were banned in schools. An Audit Commission report pointed out that there was “no evidence” such measures would encourage obese kids to eat more healthily. More recently, of course, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was tickked off by the Office for National Statistics for fiddling the numbers on knife crime while Harriet Harman got rapped over the knuckles for ignoring advice on how to present figures on the gender pay gap. There’s plenty on this and much more in Complete and Utter Zebu.

On The Today Programme, former government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King recalled 2003. “I was involved in the preparaton of a White Paper on energy. We had nuclear energy in that White Paper. It was pulled out at the last minute by a cabinet decision.” As he pointed out, “That bill didn’t add up, which is why we had another White Paper in 2007.” As for Johnson’s decision to sack Nutt:

“I think the government has lacked courage in backing David’s committee’s advice. I think it’s a lack of courage from government that is a big issue here.” Sir David King, former Chief Scientific Adviser.

Prof. Nutt was interviewed about why he’d spoken out. Had he not overstepped the line? “All I have done,” he said, “is present the evidence in the best way possible and to challenge why that evidence was ignored or rebutted. Cannabis was made a Class C drug after a huge amount of research. Two reports were published, both of which said cannabis is harmful but the harm is appropriate for Class C.

“The new prime minister comes in, Gordon Brown, and one of the first things he says is that cannabis is a lethal drug, which of course, it isn’t, and that it should be Class B. Then he asks us to go away and find the evidence to justify that. We go away, we find the evidence doesn’t justify that, but it still happens.

“He is the first prime minister, this is the first government, that has ever, in the history of The Misuse of Drugs Act, gone against the evidence of its scientific panel. Then he did it again with ecstasy. It’s not about overstepping the line. It’s the government that are overstepping the line. They are making scientific decisions before they have even consulted with their experts.”

“It’s the government that are overstepping the line. They are making scientific decisions before they have even consulted with their experts.” – Professor David Nutt.

“There are some aspects of science which should not be subject to petty party politics. I think the drug laws are one of them. Just as we took out from party politics the regulation of interest rates and gave that to the Bank of England, surely what we should be doing regarding drugs laws is taking them out of party politics, setting up an independent committee that decides on drug harm, ranks drugs according to some variation on the MIsuse of Drugs Act and then puts that into legislation.”