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Been thinking about that line in the Independent Group announcement, about "policies that are evidence-based, not based on ideology", and how crazy it is that so many people whove worked in some cases high up in our political system think that such a clear distinction is possible
"But don't you write about 'policy that works' for public servants?" Sure! But what works usually means what successfully achieves outcome x. Deciding on outcome x, or on the outcome that informs outcome x, can still be ideological.
There's also a lively debate about the limits of evidence-based policy even in the wonkiest corners of our society, as @jenniferguay7 wrote about here https://apolitical.co/solution_article/evidence-based-policymaking-is-there-room-for-science-in-politics/
If you look at people like, say, Behavioural Insights teams (we have one, so does Australia for example, who appear to be most at the evidence-based end of things, they're still essentially saying "you want to do x, right? Well, if you do that, it won't do x, this will"
Plus idea that evidence rules all can cause other problems eg this from @edwardsiddons https://apolitical.co/solution_article/donors-want-data-and-rapid-scaling-its-stifling-innovation-in-the-aid-sector/
And government innovation labs, who produce some of the sorts of eyecatching yet pragmatic policies that centrists often love, commonly complain that it's hard to capture what they do in conventional evaluation
Plus based on what *kind* of evidence? Different models measure different things https://apolitical.co/solution_article/policy-evaluations-fail-too-often-heres-how-to-make-them-more-nimble/ (from @FergusPeace)
ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY... I know what they *mean*. Evidence is too often *absent* from policy discussion (see: grammar schools, prisons, the list is endless). But evidence and ideology aren't separable and anyone aiming for a pure evidence-based approach is selling u snake oil
