A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic

by Laura Dodsworth

  As Karl Augustus Menninger said, ‘Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.’ We need to inoculate ourselves against fear.

  ‘The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades. All over the world we are seeing the devastating impact of this invisible killer … From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction – you must stay at home.’

  From Boris Johnson’s speech to the nation, 23 March 2020

  1. FRIGHT NIGHT

  Ifroze. Appalled by the words. Fight and flight are the better known responses to fear. If you believe you can defeat the source of threat you go into fight mode. If you see the danger as too powerful to overcome, you try to run away: the flight response. If you can’t defeat the danger or bolt from it, you freeze. Appropriately, considering my foreseeable future would involve not leaving the house, going out to work, or to see my family, friends or partner, I froze on the sofa.

  But as I watched Boris Johnson’s speech to the nation, as he told us we ‘must’ stay at home, I also started observing his body language. Why was he clenching his fists so hard? Why the staccato speech? Something seemed ‘off’ and that triggered alarm bells. Later on I considered my own response. Until that point I had not been unreasonably frightened of the virus, so why was this speech frightening me now? I was sure that the prime minister’s language was intended to alarm me, and that in itself worried me.

  I have always tended to freeze when I am frightened. I find it a bit disappointing. It’s not a very useful reaction. Of all the fear responses, freeze elicits the most uncomfortable after-effect, as it often accompanies attacks and victims can feel ashamed. But if a threat is bigger than you, and you can’t get away from it, freezing and just trying to survive it is your only remaining option. We exhibit all these fear responses at different times because they are successful evolutionary mechanisms; they kept us alive.

  Once, my eldest son climbed too far up a tree and fell. I had a bad feeling about that tree. I said he shouldn’t climb it, because it had dead branches and, well, because I am a mother. I was maybe 50 yards from the tree when he fell. As he plummeted, I felt every quantum of strength and usefulness drain through my feet into the ground. After the first wave of cold sweat, I wobbled towards the tree, finding my strength and gathering pace as I went, to find him lying unharmed between lethal, spiky branches. My husband had leapt instantaneously into action, galloping towards our son while shouting ‘Oi! Oi! Oi!’ He had beaten me to it.

  Looking back, there are two learnings. First, I freeze. Such a weak-kneed response is not much help (there’s the shame) unless I encounter a grizzly bear some day. Second, I also learnt my first fears are worth attending to. I should heed my instinct when it tells me something is amiss. My radar is often good.

  Like many others, I had done my best to qualify as an armchair virologist by mid-March 2020, and inhaled articles and YouTube videos about viruses, Wuhan and the Diamond Princess. So I understood that while this was a lethal and nasty virus, and much was still unknown, it would inevitably behave as all other respiratory viruses before it. Why would it not?

  One reason that Boris Johnson’s speech alarmed me was because I was worried that the response was disproportionate. Never before had we quarantined the healthy. We were mimicking totalitarian China’s response to the virus. How I had pitied the poor Chinese welded into their homes! My mind fast-forwarded to the worst possible economic and social consequences. Should the precautionary principle in this case mean we should lock down – an un-evidenced method of trying to control a virus – or was it more prudent to follow well-rehearsed pandemic protocols, which had never recommended lockdowns? (At this point you may say, ah, but we had prepared for influenza, not coronavirus! In which case please let me assure you that coronavirus was on the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies.1)

  I have to acknowledge my own fear – I am in no way immune. Indeed, I doubt I would have wanted to write this book had I not felt the prickles of fear myself. From the first night we were told to lock down I realised I was more frightened of authoritarianism than death, and more repulsed by manipulation than illness. Like the rest of the nation I stayed put for three weeks. Then three weeks more. And, well, we’re still here one way or another. Then the freeze thawed and I started thinking, and then wobbling, towards the source of my fear. That is also what I do. I may take a little longer to arrive, but I want to look my fears squarely in the eyes once I’m there.

  What was it that felt ‘off’ about Boris Johnson’s speech? Reviewing it recently I was struck again by the artifice that triggered my radar on 23 March. Johnson is a performer, but he normally performs the ‘likeable buffoon’. You would expect such an important speech to be rehearsed, but it felt too contrived and different to his normal presentation. He was controlled, stern, and at a basic level that was hard to pinpoint, it didn’t feel genuine.

  I asked two experts to help me decode Johnson’s body language and style of speech.

  Naomi Murphy is a clinical and forensic psychologist who has spent many years working in high-security prisons, often with people who don’t always tell the truth. She echoed my reaction: ‘His words and some of his body language convey one message, but you sense another message, and that rings alarm bells. He doesn’t seem authentic.’ She pointed out that there were times when he was giving a message with his head and hands, bobbing his head forwards and gesticulating, but his body was held back, suggesting that personally he did not believe in the essence of his words.

  An appearance of inauthenticity could have been simply down to nerves. It would be natural to feel nervous before such a momentous speech to the nation, and that affects behaviour and body language. As Murphy said, ‘you can hear his mouth is dry, which is incredible for someone who is used to the limelight. This is a man who likes being liked, and he might be worried that the public will not like him anymore.’

  Neil Shah, founder of the Stress Management Society and International Wellbeing Insights, has delivered leadership training which includes how to read non-verbal communication. We watched the YouTube video of the speech remotely over a video call, so that he could analyse it blow by blow. He told me he would be interpreting a blend of signals because 55% of our communication is through body language, 38% is volume and tone and only 7% is the actual words we use.

  ‘Twenty-six seconds in and you can see the tension in his fingers,’ Shah commented. ‘He is clenching so hard his knuckles turn white.’ He pointed out Johnson was hunched and leaning forwards like he was holding on for dear life. I asked what it means when someone clenches their fists so hard. He told me it can be for emphasis, or as an aggressive gesture, but ‘it also looks like a tantrumming toddler. The way he is jabbing his fists at us shows tension.’

  Johnson also gives the most awkward and uncomfortable smile when he talks about compliance. Shah added that ‘it’s almost threatening. We smile when things are funny, but also when we are nervous. When he said that no prime minister wants to do this, a grave look would have suited the moment better than a ghoulish grin.’

  Like Murphy, Shah thought the prime minister didn’t believe everything he was saying: ‘There doesn’t seem to be congruence between his words and his body language. It suggests he is not speaking from the heart and doesn’t believe what he is saying.’

  Both believed his body language was more consistent with his words when he was discussing the impact on the NHS, but was incongruent when he was being more authoritarian in his message. The eyes never lie, so they say, even when the mouth does, and these conversations with Murphy and Shah proved to me that body language doesn’t either. The prime minister of the UK would probably have been professionally coached to give the speech of his life, but the body betrays emotion and conflict regardless.

  Unprompted, both experts offered astonishing analogies. Murphy likened Johnson’s speech to ‘a forced hostage speech’. Shah asked if I could see the resemblance to the ep
isode of Black Mirror (the British dystopia sci-fi TV series) where the prime minister must be filmed for live TV having sex with a pig. I could see what they both meant.

  Hindsight provides another level of analysis. We know the thrust of the message was not true. We did not lock down for three weeks. The reason we locked down was ostensibly to flatten the curve, but the mission creeped and we stayed in lockdown. We also now know that the curve might have flattened anyway, regardless of lockdown, since deaths peaked on 8 April, meaning infections peaked before lockdown.2 When Johnson told us we would shut down the country for three weeks, the authenticity of his body language shut down too, his language and posture forced and aggressive.

  Johnson’s words were designed to call fear and death to mind: ‘invisible killer’, ‘lives will be lost’, ‘funerals’, and so on. He told us we were ‘enlisted’ – very specific wartime language, evoking the Blitz spirit, but also emotionally manipulative. At this point, Shah pointed out that we weren’t given a choice, so we were conscripted rather than enlisted. Actually, there was no room for conscientious objectors, so I’d go with press-ganged.

  My experts and I found this video difficult to re-watch. With time the performance grates more and the words have acquired a bitter taste. Ultimately, whether you believe Johnson gave the most heartfelt and honest speech of his life, or was coached too hard and over-egged it, or was misleading us, it was a frightening speech. His words set the tone for the three weeks to follow and hovered in the air for many months. As Murphy said to me, ‘You can’t under-estimate the amount of imprinting this speech would have created.’ Johnson released a certain amount of fear that night, like an airborne virus, and you caught it one way or the other. Maybe you believed every word and it was an apocalyptic pandemic that would bring society to its knees. Maybe you were suspicious of the motives behind the inauthenticity, and perhaps there was an agenda that you feared would bring society to its knees. But it was frightening.

  We were told we must follow the rules to ‘save many thousands of lives’. Threats littered the latter part of Johnson’s speech. The police would have powers to enforce the rules; we must follow the rules. The threat of power and penalty is designed to frighten us into compliance. But in a dishonest departure from the rule of law, the ‘rules’ he was ordering us to obey would not be made law for a further three days.

  We didn’t know this. The nation took the prime minister seriously from that night. Deadly seriously, just as we were supposed to. Murphy told me she hadn’t observed Johnson’s body language very closely on the night because she was listening so attentively to what we must do. This is a natural response. He is the elected leader of the country. Authority figures command respect, even in today’s jaded world. Psychologically, there is a reason for this.

  When we’re in panic mode our body directs less blood to our blood-hungry brain and more to our limbs so that we are able to fight or take flight as needed. As a result, when we’re threatened the brain needs shortcuts; ways to make decisions quickly. On the most obvious level, we listen to authority figures and leaders, and want to trust them in a time of crisis. We also respond to ‘archetypes’. Our elected leader fulfils the archetypal role of ‘ruler’ and at a time of crisis – the archetypal Jungian motif for this crisis would be ‘Apocalypse’ – we are even more primed to listen and obey in order to survive.

  In fact, the priming had started weeks earlier.

  DARREN, 64

  I grew up in a deprived area in Liverpool and I was a police officer for 32 years. I’ve done raids on criminal houses, I’ve carried firearms, I’ve gone through front doors at 4am, I’ve policed riots. I’m not saying I’m a tough nut, but not much throws me.

  If I’m being honest, I was alarmed when the news about Covid exploded. I think everybody wondered what was going to happen. You’d have to be quite thick-skinned or a bit daft not to have been worried, especially when they talked about a quarter of a million people dying.

  I am on the clinically vulnerable list, so I got a letter off the government advising me quite strongly to shield. That letter upped the ante straight away. I also had a lot of texts about abiding by restrictions, and it had a subliminal effect on me. I have two of the conditions they were talking about – incurable cancer and a heart problem – so I thought I really, really can’t go anywhere near this virus.

  My wife decided to shield too, otherwise the advice was we should eat in different rooms and clean the loo in between us using it. You can’t live like that in a small house with one kitchen and one bathroom. All these messages make you think that this must be such a bad and such an infectious virus.

  There wasn’t much to do, so we’d watch TV and we saw programmes about disinfecting your shopping when it arrives, and having a safe zone in the kitchen. The nightly bulletins on the TV about death tolls, the big graphs with huge spikes on them, came at us ‘boom, boom, boom!’ It was a constant barrage of doom and gloom. My fear of the virus went through the roof.

  Back then when I was listening to other people’s stories of the outside world, I remember thinking it sounded mad that McDonald’s was closed and there were spots on the ground at Tesco telling you where to stand.

  It was like the fear we had in the Cold War, but much worse. That was an abstract concept, we didn’t think it would really happen, but Covid was something we were told was actually happening.

  I stayed at home for 11 weeks. When I went for my first hospital appointment after seven weeks of shielding, my brain overloaded. I was a wreck that day, petrified of my own shadow. I drove rather than walked, because I didn’t think I should breathe in air that other people were breathing out.

  When I got out the car I didn’t know if I could do this, but I steeled myself and I had my mask and gloves on. My fear got compounded because I was greeted by someone at the hospital entrance who told me I had to take my mask and gloves off because they’d come from outside. That made me think it must be really bad.

  There were signs everywhere telling you, ‘Don’t go past this point. Stand here’. Most of the chairs had been taken out. Nurses were in protective gear. They took my temperature which they wouldn’t normally. Everything screamed danger.

  I didn’t feel wobbles or jellies, but my head was racing, ‘I’m going to catch it, I’m going to catch it. If I breathe out of place, if I touch the wrong thing, if someone walks past me, I’m going to catch it.’ If someone walked past me I would hold my breath.

  Hospital workers walked past me when I was on my way out, and in my head I was thinking ‘What are you doing?’ When the third one walked past me I swore at him under my breath, the rude four-letter word that begins with ‘c’.

  When I got home I stripped off in the conservatory because I didn’t want to contaminate the house with my clothes. I put my clothes in a plastic bag and I threw my shoes away! I sat in the hottest bath I could, for as long as I could, scrubbing every inch of myself. I looked like a lobster when I got out.

  The turning point for me was that the government reopened golf courses. My oncologist said I should get out and that we were going to play a round of golf. It was terrifying at first, but crucially, that got me talking to people and that helped me get over the fear.

  For a long time I was frightened of everything: the world, the air, other people, physical objects, anything that could transmit the virus basically. Looking back, I can’t believe it was me. I think I became agoraphobic.

  I’m awfully angry about the fear now. I feel cheated. Ultimately I am angry at Parliament, not just the government, because there was no real opposition to anything. I’m angry at the media too and feel betrayed, they only publish one side of the argument.

  It was despicable that the government tried to frighten us. Any other walk of life, you’d be arrested.

  2. FEAR SPREADS IN THE MEDIA LIKE AN AIRBORNE VIRUS

  Awoman in a face mask stands with her shopping bags next to a subway. Suddenly she falls forward, landing flat on her face. Sh
e lies immobile and stiff on the pavement. A concerned shopkeeper runs out to check on her.

  A man is out cold in the street, as people in white hazmat suits attend to him. Another man lies face up, body straight, alone in a corridor. Another body, two people attending in hazmat suits. A very wide roadblock is manned by people in white lab coats, masks and high-vis vests. Another man lies on his back in a shop. The area is cordoned off. People in PPE look on.

  These worrying scenes all appear in a video1 which paints an apocalyptic picture of collapsed citizens, medics in hazmat suits, concerned bystanders and a city grinding to a halt. It was our first glimpse of a new, deadly epidemic and our first taste of fear. It appeared in the British press, specifically the Mail Online, Metro Online and The Sun on 24 January 2020. The video was out at the same time that the first few hundred cases and the first handful of deaths were reported in China and shortly before the first case was confirmed in the UK on 31 January.

  I remember the video being shared on Twitter and Facebook – I’m not the TikTok or Snapchat generation, but the video also went viral there. Fear is contagious and social media offers the perfect conditions for it to spread. Viruses travel fast by air, but fear travels faster – share, share, share!

  One description of the video read ‘a particularly dramatic piece of CCTV shows a person wearing a face mask standing on the street, before collapsing to the floor as others rush to help.’ Watch the video and decide for yourself whether that is a generous, gullible or collusive review. It’s striking how ‘set up’ and fake the scene is. There’s even a visible split second when the falling woman falters. Falling flat on your face takes guts and she does a pretty good job, but it still looks like amateur dramatics. Readers’ comments ranged from the credulous ‘truly frightening’ to the sceptical ‘complete set up’.