When-I-visited-Manchester-it-didn't-rain arguments

Anecdotes can bring arguments alive but they’re not the basis for sound policies.

It has been reported that some foreign football stars have been reluctant to sign for Manchester United because of the city’s weather. Compared to Birmingham (26.6 inches of rainfall per year) and London (29.6 inches), Manchester gets 35.5 inches. Manchester is also a bit colder than London (and has fewer nightclubs for footballers to display their bling). Sometimes you’ll come across someone who’ll tell you that it didn’t rain when they visited Manchester as if that proves that Manchester isn’t a wet city. Whilst the anecdote might be true it doesn’t alter the fact that North West England gets more than its fair share of precipitation.

The ‘When-I-visited-Manchester-it-didn’t-rain’ argument is typical of the my-truth-is-truth school of modern liberalism. Thirty years ago there wasn’t so much evidence favouring a conservative worldview. All that has changed.

Empirical conservatism

At the start of the twenty-first century evidence is firmly on the side of conservatism. Conservatives have always defended the intrinsic value of healthy marriages but, in the 1960s, they couldn’t call on much evidence that proved that the welfare of children benefited from their parents being married. That evidence now exists. We are also discovering many of the health consequences of ‘soft’ drug use. Perhaps because of the values taught by church schools The Daily Telegraph has reported how they “dominate” educational league tables.

Anecdotes still have their place

Stories remain an important way of bringing any argument alive. Politicians often use human props – or skutnicks - for this very reason. The Telegraph story on church schools – mentioned above – makes it point by profiling the excellent record of one church school in Rochdale (which just happens to be in Manchester’s rainzone).

Although statistics can be misused it is important that a politician’s arguments aren’t entirely anecdotal. Anecdotes should be used to illustrate arguments that are based in sound research and empirical evidence.

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