Policy think-tank the Federation of Fiscal Studies (FFS) is to close due to the lack of demand for thinking.
A spokesman said, ‘Politicians don’t need to think about policies any more. They can just say something dumb on social media and if it gets enough likes, then it’s the new policy. The days when policies might be based on data or evidence are long gone. And so are the days when there was reasonable debate about policies. Policies change on a daily basis, so there’s no time to think them through. It’s all dog whistles and megaphones these days.
‘We’ve know that we were in trouble for a while. We’ve been joking that we were at risk of thinking without trace. It’s not funny now. Actually, it wasn’t funny then. Most of our income is from doing interviews and providing quotes for news organisations. We can sell the comment but we can’t sell the proper work.
‘Proper thinking isn’t valued any more. You can ask a search engine or a chatbot and get something close to thinking in seconds and for most people that’s good enough. We tried to persuade the government that AI isn’t good enough to form policy on NHS waiting lists, doctors’ pay and asylum seekers, but they weren’t convinced. They say that policy formed from search engines, chatbots, AI and fresh-faced but spotty PPE graduates is all they need. It’s been working since 2010, they say, and they haven’t been found out yet.’