Dominic Cummings wrote about how it's hard to get UK politicians to say the things that voters want to hear according to polling data and thus hard to get them to maximize their chances of winning.
Getting them to give up part of their power over law-making would be much harder.
I'm an American. I don't understand UK politics. All I know is, there was once a PM named Liz Truss. Liz did something the markets didn't like. Now PM Liz is no more.
It's not only that the market didn't like it. Many people don't like taxes for the rich to get cut.
The UK already has mechanisms to investigate the impact of proposed government policy, in this case the Office for Budget Responsibility which provides independent economic forecasts. The Chancellor and Prime Minister refused to allow the publication of these forecasts alongside the mini-budget that caused market turmoil. I'm not sure you can reasonably blame the quality of existing forecasting mechanisms when the relevant decision-makers were openly disregarding them.
Thanks. This makes me less excited about prediction market advocacy.
I think it could still be a better time than average to advocate though. Announcing prediction markets could be a way for the next government to double down on good forecasting, and convince voters they won't make the same mistake as the previous government.
John's mechanism here is about getting better information for the PM; presumably she already saw the OBR report. Preventing publication doesn't mean you didn't pay attention.
There was no report, the OBR offered to update their forecasts to take account of the mini budget proposals but weren't asked to. Even if there was a report though, and Truss/Kwarteng read it, the fact they didn't publish it would indicate that it contradicts their course of action. That doesn't support the idea that improved forecasting would've led to better decision making.
Fair enough, I didn't realize the report didn't exist!