Modern governments rely on numbers. They are the lifeblood of departments, used to judge the success or failure of policies. Politicians use them to legitimise their views and ideas and to scrutinise, expose and attack the other side.
While in the past it might have been enough for public policy to be justified on the basis of “because I say so”, governments can no longer rely on blind faith. They are expected, even required, to back their policies with hard evidence – the unease that greeted Liz Truss government’s mini-budget is a case in point – and we tend to view numbers as the most solid form of evidence there is.
