The illusion of the 'little guys'

Abbie MacGregor has an interesting CAPX piece on the use of dodgy numbers by nanny state zealots.


Nanny-state zealots have used nonsense numbers for too long

• With the NHS under strain, we can't afford to class gambling as a public health issue
• Statistics are being manipulated to prop up the nanny state
• The cost of prohibition ultimately falls to the taxpayer

Statistics may be dull, but they serve an important role as the enemy of public health zealots. These killjoys often believe that even just one person being harmed is enough to justify any number of bans, even when the most basic of calculations can challenge them.


The whole piece is well worth reading, particularly in relation to this insight  - public health groups are still considered to be the trustworthy ‘little guys’. Large charities like to spin the same illusion.


Misusing statistics is a trick as old as time, but it has significant implications for public health policy, and it’s us left footing the bill.

It wouldn’t be so easy to do this if the burden of proof for nanny-state obsessives wasn’t so shockingly low. Perhaps this is because many seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that all public health groups are still considered to be the trustworthy ‘little guys’, in contrast to what they would describe as self-interested, profiteering companies. This is a rather antiquated view. In 2023, PETA, a pressure group that believes animals and humans should have zero interaction, received almost $75 million (£59 million) in public donations. Charities such as these are better described as campaign corporations, operating with vast amounts of money, and often gaining outsized influence over public policy.