Inside the Sausage Factory
'Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.' - Otto von Bismarck
The 21st-century public is endlessly bombarded with calls for restrictions on unhealthy or sinful behaviour. Whether it's sugar taxes, plain packaging on cigarettes, or minimum alcohol prices, we're often told that these policies are for our own good - the evidence says so.
But what is the evidence for evidence-based policymaking?
Inside the Sausage Factory looks under the bonnet of four campaigns for public health policies in Britain to discover what kind of evidence was influential and whether it made any difference.
The findings will disappoint anyone who expects rational decision-making and sound legislation. It is a story of shallow politicians, state-funded campaigners, activist-academics, junk science and bad laws.
Evidence was used, but only as window dressing. Applying insights from public choice theory, Dr Christopher Snowdon argues that all the players in these policy campaigns - activists, politicians, academics, industry and voters - were acting in their self-interest and that the decisive factor was political pressure, not science.
Read this book, and let it ruin your appetite for politics.
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