More evidence – as if it were needed – that ministers terrified the public into complying with lockdown
When one of the highest ministers in the land admits the British public was deliberately ‘scared witless’ by the Government, it’s time to face the music. And what depressing music – its drumbeat was fear and the cadence was gloomy.
In an interview in The Spectator, Rishi Sunak has revealed that the Government used targeted messaging to frighten the public and stifle dissent. This is no surprise to me, because advisors to the government broke cover to share their concerns about nudge and fear-mongering for my book A State of Fear. Simon Ruda, one of the founders of the Nudge Unit reflected in Unherd that ‘the most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed on the public’. The recommendation to ‘raise the level of personal threat among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging’ was even minuted by SPI-B in March 2020.
I didn't see any evidence of people being terrified by the pandemic, but the government certainly managed to instil compliant, we're all in it together, clap the NHS, follow the rules anxiety in far too many people. Much of the anxiety seemed to be anxiety about not following the rules. Plus priggish anxiety about other people not following the rules.
When governments have yet another bash at psychological manipulation, they appear to be no better at it than they are at everything else. Unless instilling fear wasn't the game being played which it probably wasn't.
Sunak explains that one of his big concerns about fear was that it can have long-lasting effects. This is known to disaster planners: fear makes recovery harder. We can still see the effects of it now, in the trigger happy calls for masks or lockdowns whenever case rates go up. He singled out the gruesome posters showing Covid patients on ventilators, but fear was amplified and weaponised in many more ways.
Those long-lasting effects are surely far more complex than fear. Contempt for government by expert is one, contempt for the media is another. On the other side of the political fence, the casual acceptance of a thoroughly totalitarian political ethos is yet another. That's the sinister one, the one we should fear.
Sunak explains that one of his big concerns about fear was that it can have long-lasting effects. This is known to disaster planners: fear makes recovery harder. We can still see the effects of it now, in the trigger happy calls for masks or lockdowns whenever case rates go up. He singled out the gruesome posters showing Covid patients on ventilators, but fear was amplified and weaponised in many more ways.
Those long-lasting effects are surely far more complex than fear. Contempt for government by expert is one, contempt for the media is another. On the other side of the political fence, the casual acceptance of a thoroughly totalitarian political ethos is yet another. That's the sinister one, the one we should fear.
6 comments:
I think she is right in most of her details, and in the conclusion: that we are being softened up for Net Zero nonsense.
Overall, though, I remain suspicious of conspiracies like this one, on the grounds that the government is no more capable of propagating a conspiracy than it is capable of all the other things it sets out to do. Surviving is the main one. If they can't even stay in office, then they can't plan on such a global scale.
But the presentation of an epidemic as a "war narrative" is indeed telling. I wonder what would have happened if they had merely announced that we were in the midst of a big 'flu pandemic as per 1917, told people to take the obvious precautions, and then backed off from it as a "story".
I used to carry a facemask with me as some locales expected me to wear one. The mask was pretty grimy by the time I threw it away.
I still see a (very) few people wearing face masks. Usually older people who may perhaps have some immune system deficiency - yet they often wear the mask over the mouth only, or even under the chin.
In view of the latest admissions you might claim this continued mask wearing to be the consequence of elder abuse.
Like Sam V, I smell the reek of incompetence rather than cunning. The elites couldn't plan their way out of a paper bag as he says. I think as strong, fearless individuals, if we are such, we should take a leaf out of the organised criminals' book, as the French often do, and subvert their authority with subterfuge and independent action.
Sam and Tammly - behind the political actors we do see people who could propagate a conspiracy because theirs is a much more permanent role. It is those people who would think of softening us up for Net Zero and the idea itself could rapidly propagate internationally through other bureaucracies.
Yes, the presentation of the pandemic as a "war narrative" is telling. The promoters of Net Zero may well have realised some time ago that it would eventually require a war narrative too. What we see looks like both incompetence and planning.
DJ - we still see a few mask wearers. I'm not sure what they think they are doing because from what I see they are just cheap things which don't even fit round the mouth and nose correctly.
"I didn't see any evidence of people being terrified by the pandemic"
I still see people driving alone in their cars with masks on.
I used to laugh at them, but now I pity them because it's clear they've been scared out of their wits by government lies.
So sorry, but I can't agree with you on that at least.
Peter - those I see seem as if they are wearing masks "just in case" rather than being scared, rather like always taking an umbrella even though rain is very unlikely.
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