Right Wing Watch, our new segment, gets its inaugural run out in this episode.

This is our newest segment in which we flag recent papers or campaigns from right-wing think tanks, bloggers and other thought leaders with considerable influence over the policy and news agenda.

In the run up to the 2017 Budget — and with preventative regulations being considered to tackle obesity and smoking without stretching the NHS budget very far — the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and Taxpayer’s Alliance have published reports calling for the curtailment of public health measures.

The IEA were founded in 1950s, were a favourite of Margaret Thatcher’s and remain highly influential. Their journal, Economic Affairs, is mandatory on many university reading lists. The paper we discuss is called Killjoys: A critique of paternalism. It was written by Christopher Snowdon who is the Director of the IEA’s ‘Lifestyle Economics Unit’. He has previously written a number of books and articles that rail against government action related to tobacco, alcohol and sugary food.

Warren digs into the arguments made in Killjoys in some depth in the episode but the basic thesis is that people should be free to harm their health with whatever products they want. Government regulations that discourage the purchase or consumption of cigarettes, alcohol and the like are nothing more than attempts to curtail individual freedoms.

The efficacy of public health spending by the Taxpayers’ Alliance mines a similar vein. Policies that seek to change behaviour are seen as gross intrusions into personal choice. Not only that, they are regarded as highly wasteful spending.

The report is basically a long list of spending on public health policies. There is no breakdown of cost-effectiveness or even any mention of potential savings from preventative programmes aimed at making citizens healthier.

Perhaps some of these schemes are far too expensive and should be redesigned. As a public policy nerd, I know very well that policies are rarely perfect and almost always require tweaking. However, you would never be able to make any such assessment from the information provided in this paper.

That is the central problem of these papers. Despite claims to high intellectual standards and highly polished exteriors, there is very little depth. The authors are often strong rhetoricians — dismissing smoking related deaths as “sub-optimal”, as though it were a minor inconvenience — but avoid substance at all costs.

Why? Because digging deeper reveals too much.

Beyond the policy papers

The Taxpayers’ Alliance actually cropped up last week due to their stirring defense of tax havens following the Paradise Papers. I suppose this should have given us a good idea of the intellectual rigour they are committed to.

Beyond the actual arguments made in these papers, both think tanks are linked to some unsavoury funding.

Transparify, an organisation that rates the financial transparency of 150+ think tanks around the world, called the IEA “highly opaque” and “experts in distorting public opinion” in their 2017 report.

Who Funds You?, another organisation focused on financial transparency of UK think tanks, gives the Taxpayers’ Alliance and the IEA ‘E’ grades. Those are the worst you can get. It indicates that there is “no or negligible relevant information provided” on the sources of their funding. In addition, journalists have linked both Snowdon and the IEA to lobbying efforts paid for by big tobacco, including giving cash gifts to a minister to secure a policy change.

It might be worth reading their work with a pinch of salt then.

The scary part is that — despite shoddy arguments and dubious intentions — these kinds of groups are much more important than you might expect.

The Guardian called the Taxpayers’ Alliance “arguably the most influential pressure group in the country”. The Telegraph named it one of the top 12 think tanks in the UK. Oxford University career service list the IEA on its page on think tanks, steering some of the top graduates in the country towards them. The IEA was also mentioned in a Forbes article highlighting the best think tanks around.

And that’s why we’re making Right Wing Watch a regular segment. These are organisations that get attention and respect. A policymaker with a hundred other things to do could easily get one of these reports sent to them, scan it and conclude that the points raised are well researched and worthy of attention. That’s dangerous.

You know the drill:

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