At what point does 'anecdotal' evidence of the results of any given policy start to look like reality?

He had made the point that if he was some £800 per month worse off because of Labour’s 50% tax band, he would have to cut some current personal ‘discretionary’ expenditure to make up the difference. School fees and household bills were non-discretionary.

So his cuts would fall in part on other people (home help, gardeners, craftsmen) whose work for him could be scaled back or even got rid of altogether.

In short, the government would be taking much of that extra tax not from the upper-class rich but from the lower-class working not-rich.

The Conservative (who should have known better but seemed not to) blandly had said that that sort of argument was ‘anecdotal’.

“Yes, but thousands of people out there will give you similar anecdotes.”