Expert enlisted. Speaks out. Gets sacked. It's a tradition | Jackie Ashley | Comment is free

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Speaks out. Gets sacked. It's a tradition</h1> <p id="stand-first" class="stand-first-alone">David Nutt is the latest in a litany of advisers cast out. It points to a wider puzzle for politicians: how to import talent</p> </div> <ul id="content-actions"> <li> <div class="pluck-init-block" id="comment-info-related"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/01/advisers-policy-government-politicians-drugs?commentpage=1" class="comment-count-info comment-icon">Comments (<span class="comment-count">…</span>)</a> </div> </li> <li class="third-party-tool "> <a id="buzzlink" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://uk.buzz.yahoo.com/buzz?publisherurn=the_guardian665&targetUrl=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/01/advisers-policy-government-politicians-drugs&summary=%3Cstrong%3EJackie+Ashley%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E+David+Nutt+is+the+latest+in+a+litany+of+advisers+cast+out.+It+points+to+a+wider+puzzle+for+politicians%3A+how+to+import+talent&headline=Expert enlisted. Speaks out. Gets sacked. It's a tradition | Jackie Ashley |Comment is free |The Guardian">Buzz up!</a> </li> <li class="third-party-tool"> <a id="digglink" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://digg.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guardian.co.uk%2Fcommentisfree%2F2009%2Fnov%2F01%2Fadvisers-policy-government-politicians-drugs&title=Expert+enlisted.+Speaks+out.+Gets+sacked.+It%27s+a+tradition+%7C+Jackie+Ashley">Digg it</a> </li> </ul> </div> <div id="content"> <ul class="article-attributes no-pic multi-pub"> <li> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jackieashley"> <img class="contributor-pic-small" src="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/contributor/2007/09/28/jackie_ashley_140x140.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="Jackie Ashley" title="Contributor picture"/> </a> </li> <li id="contrib-shift"><ul> <li class="byline"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jackieashley" name="&lid={contentTypeByline}{Jackie Ashley}&lpos={contentTypeByline}{1}">Jackie Ashley</a> </li> <li class="publication"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/" name="&lid={contentTypeByline}{guardian.co.uk}&lpos={contentTypeByline}{2}">guardian.co.uk</a>, Sunday 1 November 2009 22.00 GMT </li> </ul></li> </ul> <div id="article-wrapper"> <p>Here's a message to you all – scientists, medical experts, admirals, business folk, PR consultants, economists and anyone else approached by smiling ministers with the flattering thought that you might like to join Her Majesty's government as an adviser, a tsar or even a minister in the Lords. Tread gingerly. Think thrice. And then, almost certainly, say no.</p><p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-david-nutt-sacked" title="The slinging-out of David Nutt">The slinging-out of David Nutt</a>, former adviser on the misuse of drugs, by <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/alanjohnson" title="Alan Johnson">Alan Johnson</a>, the home secretary, is the latest case in a long and sorry story. Nutt talked of how some illegal drugs, such as cannabis and ecstasy, were less dangerous than tobacco, alcohol or even riding a horse. On the science, he is probably right. But he was fired for being an adviser who gave advice in public that ministers did not want to hear. It's a tradition. Remember <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2120044.stm" title="Keith Hellawell">Keith Hellawell</a>, the former West Yorkshire chief constable fired as drugs tsar by David Blunkett? Though Hellawell's views were different from Nutt's, he too went for being outspoken in an unhelpful way.</p><p>This goes far further than a single issue. Across the policy spectrum, politicians have enticed "experts" from outside and then publicly fallen out with them. One of the more notable recent cases was the foreign office minister and former UN man <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jun/28/politics.labour1" title="Mark Malloch-Brown">Mark Malloch Brown</a>, who provided candour on issues including the Middle East, oil-for-food and the US republican right, which made him too hot for No 10 to handle. <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2005/nov/25/turnerreport.politics1" title="Lord (Adair) Turner ">Lord (Adair) Turner </a>got into a ferocious fight with Gordon Brown in 2005 after his pensions commission came up with recommendations that the then chancellor thought too expensive – and even election-losing.</p><p>Whatever the rights and wrongs of the plans, years of painstaking evidence-taking and number crunching ended in a public car crash as the startled former businessman found himself being knocked round Whitehall by a livid politician.</p><p>I've chosen very different examples, and there are plenty more. One could cite the unhappy current experience of No 10 in trying to recruit PR professionals to help the prime minister: the experienced ones come in with clear advice about consistency of message and the importance of strategy, then find "what Gordon wants" is day-to-day fire fighting. There's a row, or they are sidelined, and they quit. But whether it's drugs, policing, foreign policy or presentation, the pattern is the same. Politics invites you in, then knocks you over. Then politics stamps angrily all over your face. Why? What's going on?</p><p>The attempted deal is attractive and easy to understand. We live in a world where professional politicians have lost authority and trust, for many reasons. But others still have authority. By and large, we continue to trust people who have expert knowledge, be they soldiers, climate change scientists or academics. This is logical: if someone has been studying something for ages, or has professional expertise, they are more likely to know what they are talking about. So, without special knowledge of their own, politicians believe they will get credit for buying in some of that expertise and authority. In a way, that's what Brown did as almost his first act in office, by giving control over interest rates to a new Bank of England monetary policy committee. He was saying politicians aren't trusted on interest rates, so hand it to the experts. It was popular, it seemed to work well, and he has been trying to repeat the trick ever since.</p><p>The trouble is that independent experts tend to be, well, independent. They have minds of their own. They are accustomed to being outspoken in their areas of expertise. They also expect, when giving advice, that the advice will be taken. Now, however, they find they are entering a minefield criss-crossed by machine gun fire. It's called politics. There is pressure from hostile media looking for remarks to twist into a "crisis" or a "U-turn". There are the ministers themselves, desperate for good headlines and often thinking only a few days ahead, with no patience for patient advice. Politicians have become so worried about giving offence that they often recoil even from what seems (to the expert) commonsense and obvious.</p><p>Result? The minister finds that, far from buying in some outside authority, he has landed himself with a Frankenstein monster who needs to be put down. And the brought-in expert discovers that far from being listened to, he keeps being shouted at for mysterious "mistakes".</p><p>The Commons public administration committee is investigating the success and failure of "<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/08/malloch-brown-goat-gordon-brown" title="goats">goats</a>" – as the "government of all the talents" ministerial buy-ins are called – and will doubtless hear some agonised stories from former military and business people who arrived in the Lords and Whitehall to find it more like The Thick of It than any organisation they'd ever experienced before. Lord Digby Jones, who came and went quickly, described his time as a junior trade minister as "one of the most <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/15/digby-jones-says-halve-civil-service" title="dehumanising and depersonalising experiences ">dehumanising and depersonalising experiences </a>that anyone could have".</p><p>The Labour MP Tony Wright, who chairs the public administration committee, suggests ministers are perhaps just after "a bit of glitter" when they bring in big-name outsiders. That may well be true, but many of these outsiders have found that politics is a baffling and dangerous business to get involved with.</p><p></p><p>Quite properly, real power in politics depends on being elected, not on how much you know. In a democracy, the elected politicians must be in charge; anyone without their own power base can be discarded at will. Advisers have their place, but any attempt to turn them into semi-politicians is doomed. And politicians won't start to regain respect until they take tough decisions in their own name, and stand by them.</p><p>That leaves the wider problem behind the rash of stumbling tsars and sacrificial goats. If there isn't enough talent in politics, how can a prime minister import some? In the summer, John Major and Douglas Hurd suggested that governments should simply be able to appoint some ministers who would not be members of the Lords or the Commons – real outsiders – who would nevertheless be accountable to parliament: answering questions and replying to debates.</p><p>Interesting, but it hardly answers the problems of culture clash. Surely the only real answer is that ministers should use experts as non-affiliated, outside sources of information and advice, referring to their work rather than trying to pull them into the government. And ambitious, easily flattered former military people or scientists should refuse government blandishments. Nutt's views are interesting because of his knowledge, not because he sat on some official committee. If they want to be in politics, people should try to get elected. 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name="&lid={relatedContent}{Letters: Why Professor David Nutt was shown the door}&lpos={relatedContent}{3}"> Letters: Why Professor David Nutt was shown the door</a> </p> <h5 class="date"> 1 Nov 2009</h5> <p class="linktext"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/01/david-nutt-alan-johnstone-drugs" name="&lid={relatedContent}{David Nutts sacking provokes mass revolt against Alan Johnson}&lpos={relatedContent}{4}"> David Nutt's sacking provokes mass revolt against Alan Johnson</a> </p> </div> </div> </div> <ul id="article-toolbox"> <li class="printable"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/01/advisers-policy-government-politicians-drugs/print" rel="nofollow" id="printlink" class="printable rollover" title="Link to a printer-friendly version" name="&lid={pageToolbox}{Printer-friendly version}&lpos={pageToolbox}{1}"><img 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Speaks out. Gets sacked. It's a tradition | Jackie Ashley</h1> This article was published on <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091103094220/http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian" name="&lid={historyByline}{The Guardian}&lpos={historyByline}{3}">guardian.co.uk</a> at 22.00 GMT on Sunday 1 November 2009. 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Expert enlisted. Speaks out. Gets sacked. It's a tradition | Jackie Ashley | Comment is free | The Guardian