The new Labour government arrived to journalistic acclaim as the “adults in the room”. Labour Ministers are appointing expert panels to review thorny issues from defence to pensions. How long, however, before Ministers might find themselves echoing the remarks that got Michael Gove into so much trouble, that “people have had enough of experts. The experience of the last few years suggests three rules

[1] Experts are no more likely to be right than politicians

[2] Experts are even less likely to admit they are wrong than politicians

[3] Experts are much harder to get rid of, and whatever happens Ministers will be blamed anyway

Our recent Policy Exchange report “Getting a Grip on the System” noted how Ministers have given ever more of their power away, to arms length bodies, to regulators, and to scrutiny bodies of various sorts. In theory, this was supposed to improve performance.  

Independence of the Bank of England was widely considered to be one of the big achievements of the first Blair government (though opposed by Blair’s predecessor John Smith just a few years earlier). The Bank has a clear target, and unfettered power to set interest rates. All seemed to go well during a global moderation in inflation, only for the Bank then to miss the 2 per cent target nearly fivefold (threefold even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine), with 2022 being one of the 8 worst years for inflation in the entire postwar period.   

OBR is no better or worse than dozens of economic forecasters plying their trade in the City.  Labour is now suggesting the fiscal situation is far worse than previously understood.    

During the Covid pandemic, expert advice was based on modelling which proved over-pessimistic.  The Covid enquiry has now concluded (with hindsight) that the experts’ original pandemic plan was misconceived. The country is still picking up the pieces from the impact of lockdown in areas like school closures, and rumbling controversies over vaccine mandates and damage risk undermining public confidence in other areas of public health.  

The reputation of experts in the Climate Change Committee and the DESNZ are now on the line as the monumental national commitment to net zero depends wholly on the accuracy of the forecasts they have made about the future cost of renewables.  

The academic literature is suggestive. Study after study can find almost no evidence that subject matter experts are any better at predicting the future in their area of expertise than members of the public. In Expert political judgment: How good is it? How can we know?, Tetlock found that highly educated and experienced experts were no better than untrained readers of newspapers in their  ability to make accurate long-term forecasts of political events.  

For expertise to translate into improved performance, there needs to be a clear binary answer and a rapid feedback loop. Feedback that is “delayed, sparse and ambiguous” does not lead to improvements.  So cattle auctioneers are genuinely better than the ordinary person in assessing the likely value of a calf put in front of them. Specialists in the Chinese geostrategy are no more likely to forecast accurately the risk of war in the region than anyone else.    

Experts conversely are vulnerable to all sorts of group think, amplified through the peer review and funding processes. Neil Ferguson commented on the failure of forecasts that he was “happy to be wrong in the right direction” — overstating risk is apparently much less risky, from his point of view, than getting it wrong in the other direction.  

When the facts change, it seems easier for politicians to shift.  The Cass review and its findings on the impact of “gender affirming” care has seen a major shift in health policy in the UK. The new Labour government appears to be committed to implement the review in full. And politicians of both parties have been prepared to accept their previous positions might have been mistaken.  

Wes Streeting, now Secretary of State for Health, as well as Gillian Keegan, the former Education Secretary, have rowed back from previous statements. Streeting has said he was wrong to say “trans women are women, get over it”. Keegan has said she will no longer say “trans women are women”.

Politicians are not elected on the basis that they are subject matter experts in the areas for which they may become responsible. There is therefore enough wriggle room in politicians’ mandate to make it possible to admit mistakes.  The politician can make a noise about the poor advice they realised, hint that those responsible have been firmly dealt with, and return to square one. This isn’t a trick that is endlessly repeatable, but it has a lot of mileage in it.  

Experts, conversely, owe their influence to their expertise, which risks being fatally undermined if they admit to error. This explains the stubborn refusal of expert bodies to change their minds when facing challenges.  

Politicians can give power away, but they can’t escape responsibility when things go wrong

Why apologise anyway when ultimately politicians are going to get the blame for anything that goes wrong? Despite tackling inflation being wholly a matter for the Bank of England, the worst consequence the Governor faced was having to write successive letters to the Chancellor. Meanwhile polling during the peak inflation period suggested that more than half the electorate blamed the Government, far more than the Bank. The Covid Inquiry’s findings on pandemic preparation were implicitly damning about the expert advice Ministers received, and yet concluded we needed a UK-wide independent statutory body for whole-system civil emergency preparedness, resilience and response, presumably staffed by the same experts who are being accused of making the original mistakes.

Politicians can give power away, but they can’t escape responsibility when things go wrong. So it might be safer as well as more democratic for them to grip the system directly.