Ranting at my MP about David Nutt's dismissal...

[denny]

FOR THE ATTENTION OF:

Meg Hillier MP
Hackney South and Shoreditch

Friday 30 October 2009

Denny de la Haye
[postal address]

[email address]

Dear Meg Hillier,

I am absolutely appalled at the home secretary's reasons for removing David Nutt, the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, from his position.

Time and again* this government has hired experts to investigate an issue, and then when their advice goes against populist headline-grabbing policy, that advice has been ignored. This is bad enough. Now it seems that a scientist can be dismissed from an advisory post for simply discussing scientific facts, if those facts are not in line with this government's policies. This is outrageous.

The reason confusion exists around current drugs legislation is that successive governments have ignored scientific advice when creating that legislation. The public is apparently not quite as stupid as the government thinks, and rightly regards such legislation with contempt. If people thought the law was grounded in facts, perhaps they would be more inclined to obey it.

I am not sure whether this foolish decision can be reversed, but whether it can or not, I suggest that the government considers the message it is sending to the public when it chooses to enforce policies that have been scientifically proven to be wrong, and to punish the experts who supply those proofs.

Yours sincerely,

Denny de la Haye


* In this month alone, the issue discussed above joins the report into primary school education which was roundly ignored, where it was not attacked, for presenting factual evidence that current and (particularly) proposed government policy is contrary to the best interests of the children being taught.

Failure to base legislative policy on scientific evidence (where such evidence exists) really pisses me off.

Comments

[phase.org]

Darn, forgot to mention the schools thing in my letter. Did mention the importance of scientifically valid responses to climate change though.

[dpash]

This is pretty much exactly the contents of the letter I had intended to write to my MP. This, following the education report, has really annoyed me. In the case of the starting age for schools, it's not so much that they've ignored the advice of raising the age from five to six, but actually doing the opposite by lowering it to four. Why bother hiring experts to give you advice if you're going to just ignore it?

[(Anonymous)]

He didn't just discuss facts - he was discussing policy. It's generally understood (and there's a code of practice to this effect) that you agree not to lobby publicly for changes in government policy if you''re a government adviser. He knew this and abided by it for ten years.

This is much like other employers - if you have a go at your boss in a suitably public forum you will tend to get fired.

Failure to base legislative policy on scientific evidence (where such evidence exists) really pisses me off.

Government by expert bureaucracy certainly has some superficial appeal, but in a democracy the general principle is that the people get what the people want, whether or not the experts agree.