When is an expert not an expert?
Posted by ewancrawford on June 18, 2008
Today’s Scotsman carries a story headlined: “Expert accuses SNP of bending truth on tax.” This expert turns out to be Professor Arthur Midwinter. As the paper points out Midwinter is a paid adviser to the Scottish Labour Party. Laughably the story goes on to say that Midwinter’s comments are “intended to be an independent analysis” apparently unconnected with his day job. This is a bit like saying: “Expert oil economist says Scotland would be better off Independent,” and then revealing that the oil economist is Alex Salmond but that his analysis is intended to be independent of his politics.
If you go the article by clicking on the link above, similar points are made by some of the many online contributors who have submitted comments on this article. The Scotsman attracts huge numbers of comments on its politics stories (164 by 3.30 pm today on this relatively minor story). As always with online comments there is the usual mixture of the paranoid and the personal but also some serious points about the SNP’s local income tax proposal and Midwinter’s professional background, which certainly added something to the original story. For some proponents of the idea of deliberative democracy the advent of online commenting seemed to open the door to greater participation, and perhaps ultimately better policy-making in the democratic process. For others, such forums are simply arenas for the politically committed (and obsessed?) to slag each other off. If you’re interested in this debate the sheer weight of comments on The Scotsman site is a useful place to gather evidence.
