David Oliver: Relearning to value experts and their knowledge

Throughout the pandemic I’ve seen expert professionals and apolitical expert institutions undermined, disparaged, accused of lying, and attacked over their credibility or independence. Some of this stems from lockdown sceptics understandably concerned about the personal and wider economic impact; some of it from people with legitimate grievances about the government’s pandemic response. But the effect, and sometimes the intention, is that official health protection measures are undermined.In a political arena dominated by populism—where soundbites and simple solutions beat detail, where educated elites are painted as working against the people—government figures have helped to set the tone. In the lead-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum the politician Michael Gove famously said, “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts, with organisations and acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”1 A key figure in Vote Leave, he said this specifically to combat…
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