"Hands up — there’s absolutely no question that the decision we took was the wrong decision. But at that time we didn’t have the evidence that subsequently we d

"Hands up — there’s absolutely no question that the decision we took was the wrong decision. But at that time we didn’t have the evidence that subsequently we did have." Now there's a quote to live and die by. Big programs (incentives, taxes, peer pressure, political points) seldom wait for actual and system-wide data and defensible evidence before making decisions with wide effect, because to somebody somewhere it's always more advantageous to have the sky falling. Small changes with quantitative and qualitative feedback loops are the only sane way forward, but sound bites and negative news have far more impact and immediate (electable) results.