Policy advisers should not be silenced

Though all advisers like Nutt accept that they are not the democratically elected representatives of the people and that ultimately it is the politicians who make the decisions, their role is clearly more than just the dispensing of some technical scientific advice: it is to advise on the direction policy should take.

Where this clashes with political (vote-gathering) whim, it becomes a classic case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. The scientists and experts will not compromise their position any more than politicians will budge from theirs. This becomes extremely damaging for all concerned when the spats are played out in public. Proclamations that policy is evidence-based become completely undermined; one letter to a national newspaper noted that Nutt's sacking proved once and for all that we live in a climate not of evidence-based policy but of policy-based evidence. Ministers pick and mix the evidence that suits them.