"Politicians should be informed by experts but not led by them"
The Critic: Article by Stephen Webb considering the dangers of politicians ceding control to 'experts'.
"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
...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... Experts...are vulnerable to all sorts of group think, amplified through the peer review and funding processes.
Experts... 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. Why apologise anyway when ultimately politicians are going to get the blame for anything that goes wrong?..."