‘Many seriously ill are taken to hospital by their relatives, but turned away, and die in agony at home gasping for breath. Choking or not getting enough air is a primal fear for everyone. The same applies to the situation in which there is nothing you can do to help loved ones who are in mortal danger. The images from Italy are disturbing.’
‘“Children are unlikely to suffer from the epidemic”: Wrong. Children are easily infected, even with exit restrictions, e.g. from the neighbours’ children. When they infect their parents and one of them dies in agony at home and they feel they are to blame for forgetting to wash their hands after playing, for example, it is the most terrible thing a child will ever experience.’
The German government, and the scientists it employed, collaborated to bring images of people choking to death at home, and to inflict fear and guilt on children, in order to make the population follow rules for an epidemic which had been deliberately exaggerated. This makes the concluding lines of the report even more unpalatable:
‘Only with social cohesion and a mutual distance from one another can this crisis not only be overcome with little damage, but also be future-oriented for a new relationship between society and the state.’
Would German citizens happily consent to such a ‘future-oriented’ relationship of manipulation and fear? Would the British public if the same type of leaks came to light? Science was politicised rather than independent, and the German government was most certainly not ‘following’ the science but rather dictating it. Might a similar scenario have happened in the UK?
In researching this book I found a number of people who were keen to talk to me because they were deeply concerned about government policy, but they had their own fears we had to work around: fear of losing their job or contract if they appeared critical of the government, or fear of being seen to be contrarian or an outlier and therefore being judged. Fear influences us in many ways and we are motivated psychologically by the need for social conformity. While it’s not as satisfying to quote anonymous sources, this is how it has to be, and they are our flies on the wall in the corridors of power.
A friend offered to connect me with a government official, someone who is in and out of Number 10; someone who was sick of what they saw every day at work. Like the scientific advisor I spoke to, this government official told me exasperatedly that they were ‘at the end of [their] tether’ over the ‘indefensible’ policies enacted this year.
Also like the scientific advisor, this government source was cynical about the motivations behind the policies: ‘The government wasn’t worried about the virus, they were worried about the way the virus might ruin their PR credibility over the NHS. It all stems from the election campaign they ran on saving it. We had to make sure the NHS runs really well. Two months into government and this issue comes along which could fuck up the NHS. Lee Caine and Dominic Cummings had put it at the centre of the campaign and they couldn’t lose support and let that fail.’
Aside from Boris Johnson’s treatment in hospital, it’s easy to see why the government was so enthusiastic about the weekly ‘Clap for Carers’. Tribalism is an inherent part of human history. Football fans chant and sing, and sometimes they even pray for their team to win. (Is God really supposed to pick a side?) Building tribalism builds cohesion and conformity. People are more emotional and less rational when they are tribal. The weekly pot-banging was a tribal show of solidarity, venerating the NHS and its workers, who were central to the government’s election campaign, but there was also a Stalinist rhythm to it, which some felt but were nervous to confess to.15
The fears about the NHS might help explain the change of direction from the early plans to create ‘herd immunity’ and ‘cocooning’ the vulnerable to a full lockdown. But were ministers not frightened about the impact of the virus as well? In the main, my source said, ‘there was a fear of losing voter support,’ but, yes, ‘the health department was the most worried. Hancock is quite paranoid and a total “wet”. He’s a real panicker. He’s the kid in the playground who wouldn’t want to get hurt. And he’s in charge of the response.’
Over time, they said, the fear spread from the health department to the other departments, and they all fell under the spell of the SAGE scientists foretelling doom: ‘They’ve drunk the scientists’ kool aid. They’re scared. The government don’t have a malicious agenda, they just don’t know what they are doing. They don’t have a plan. The ministers in the cabinet think the vaccine is the best way to end it.’
The 10pm curfew for pubs was hugely controversial and it turned out was not evidenced. So why implement it? Transmission is not particularly driven by hospitality.16 My source said that the 10pm curfew decision was made even though ‘they knew they had no evidence. It was just considered a political win against the scientists, because the scientists wanted a full lockdown and the curfew was a compromise.’ I wonder what publicans will make of this compromise. The SAGE scientists’ spell might be breaking.
Just as some of the sources in this book decided they must remain anonymous for the safety of their careers, it is inevitable that politicians keep an anxious eye on their prospects. They are not anonymous. Every decision, every mistake will be examined under the media’s unforgiving magnifying glass and the inevitable future inquiry. The source who spends so much time at Number 10 tells me that our ministers fear ‘they’ll get hauled through the press for their own mistakes and that’s worse for them than ruining people’s businesses. They are scared of their own inquiry. And MPs don’t vote against the government’s lockdowns and tiers because they are worried about not being promoted.’ There is a lot of very human, very fallible fear behind the government’s decision to frighten us.
I spoke to MP Steve Baker in the summer of 2020. He also told me that the scientists had too much influence over the Cabinet Office, describing ministers as being ‘under a spell like King Theoden under the influence of Wormtongue’ in The Lord of the Rings. Baker may be a polarising figure, thanks to his well-documented support of a hard Brexit, but the issues around science, health, and behavioural psychology should transcend politics. The fact is that the response to Covid became hyper-partisan, as I discuss in Chapter 13, ‘The climate of fear’, and few politicians were expressing concerns about lockdown and the behavioural science aspects as early as Baker.
Baker told me that he considered lockdown was a ‘justifiable incursion’ on the liberties of the British people, in the context of a disease with significant consequences. In effect, the restrictions were justified at the beginning of the epidemic. How we were incited to follow the regulations was a different matter. When I asked him what he thought of the use of fear to encourage compliance with the rules he replied that, ‘in a free society we ought not treat people as if they are things to be managed. We ought not to use behavioural psychology to lead people in this manner. What’s happening now is consistent with dystopian novels. If it is true that the state took the decision to terrify the public to get compliance with rules, that raises extremely serious questions about the type of society we want to become.’
He has concerns about where we are heading: ‘Throughout all of this, what we had to do was be proportionate. It’s very difficult for me to say what should have happened, I wasn’t in the room and able to ask questions of officials. I’m clear that ministers should have had greater respect for civil liberty, the economy and other health concerns. I now think we’re into disproportionate territory. If we’re being really honest, do I fear that government policy today is playing into the roots of totalitarianism? Yes, of course it is. I went almost as far as saying that when I made a speech. Is this a totalitarian government? No. Do they believe they are liberals? Yes. And the pursuit of safety is our greatest danger at the moment.’
The pursuit of safety is our biggest danger, driven by fears and exaggerated fears.
The use of unelected advisory groups in 2020 is a technocratic style of government, a command-and-control model of public decision-makin
g that is reliant on scientific expertise rather than political debate. Added to that, there has been limited transparency about the scientific advisors, the modelling they use, and the data ingests. Before key votes on emergency legislation, MPs were not given the data they asked for. For example, 70 conservative MPs asked for a full cost-benefit analysis before a parliamentary vote on a strict three-tiered system to follow lockdown,17 and when a flimsy analysis followed it contained very little in the way of quantifiable costs and benefits.18
Within this technocratic style of government, we are subjects of a ‘psychocracy’, where the policy-making is dictated by psychological expertise. This is even more top-down and opaque, because redefining our behaviour by using stealthy psychology techniques means we aren’t always aware, let alone able to comment on, consent to or participate in policy-making. One of the aims of this book is to alert you to the tools and influence of the psychocrats.
We did not elect the psychocrats that operate and advise within the heart of government. We do not even know how each governmental unit leans on behavioural science, but there are behavioural insights teams in at least 10 government departments.19
Crises ‘justify’ political institutions and governmental units and the accretion of power above democratic oversight. All of these units operate in ways which are not transparent to the population, nor even to MPs. You will find little information about them. I approached the Cabinet Office to discuss the Rapid Response Unit and the 77th Brigade several times and never received a response. I asked MPs for introductions or insights and they were unable or unwilling to help. So, aside from the Nudge Unit, here is a brief overview of the departments that form the shadowy ‘Business of Fear’.
RICU
The Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit is a strategic communications unit within the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism in the Home Office. It works across a range of public security issues, including counter-terrorism and serious and organised crime.
One paper seen by The Guardian set out RICU’s ambition to use ‘strategic communications aims to effect behavioural and attitudinal change’. The unit apparently attempts to covertly engineer the thoughts of people by using chosen ‘grassroots organisations and NGOs, providing financial and technical support from the government for the production of their multimedia campaigns which purport to be ‘grassroots’.20 I interviewed someone who worked for an agency employed by RICU for Chapter 8, ‘Controlled spontaneity and propaganda’, and gained some fascinating insights.
THE RAPID RESPONSE UNIT
Based in Number 10 and the Cabinet Office, this unit was especially created to drive rapid response on social media to help support the ‘reclaiming of a fact-based public debate’.21 Its role during the Covid epidemic has included: ‘direct rebuttal on social media, working with platforms to remove harmful content and ensuring public health campaigns are promoted through reliable sources’. It claims to be dealing with up to 70 incidents a week.
COUNTER DISINFORMATION CELL
The cell falls under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.22 It brings together experts from various government departments and engages with social media platforms and with disinformation specialists from civil society and academia. Along with the Rapid Response Unit it tackles ‘fake news’. (Their work seems to overlap for some reason.)
We have little understanding about what the Counter Disinformation Cell and Rapid Response Unit actually do, but they seem to be working behind closed doors to control and censor otherwise lawful things people say online, despite the UK’s extensive laws about free speech and censorship. Obvious examples are the removal from YouTube of videos by doctors and scientists which supposedly contravene WHO official guidance. As Silkie Carlo of Big Brother Watch said to me, ‘I have to pinch myself sometimes that doctors have been removed from YouTube for talking about their medical experience of treating patients.’ Not only does this not allow people to think for themselves, but the WHO itself has changed its thinking a few times during the epidemic – not unusual as scientists learn about a new disease. A banned video which contravenes today’s guidance might be compliant next week when scientific consensus changes.
GCHQ
Government Communications Headquarters is an intelligence, cyber and security agency. During the epidemic it has been engaged in a ‘cyberwar on anti-vaccine propaganda’. This work is supposed to be directed at foreign actors not UK citizens online. The Times reported on a ‘Whitehall source who emphasised that GCHQ was able to gain permission to tackle disinformation that originated only from state adversaries. It is not legally permitted to disrupt online content written by ordinary citizens. “You wouldn’t get authorisation to go after cranks. People have a right to say batshit stuff online,” the source said.’23
THE 77TH BRIGADE
The 77th Brigade is an army unit which combines former media operations and psychological operations, specialising in ‘non-lethal’ forms of psychological warfare. It works with social media companies to counter disinformation. Would you believe that Twitter’s Head of Editorial in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa also served as a part-time officer for the 77th Brigade and the Ministry of Defence would not reveal his current rank when asked by Middle East Eye?24 MP Tobias Ellwood is a reservist lieutenant colonel in the 77th Brigade.
Many people believe the 77th is giving direct rebuttals to UK citizens who speak out against lockdown on social media. If you search for the hashtag #77th on Twitter you will find scathing comments from people who believe they have identified the 77th at work. My question for the 77th Brigade was, would it attack British citizens online while reinforcing the government message? The old saying goes, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’, yet ‘pileons’ can feel like ferocious verbal and psychological attacks, which lead to anxiety, withdrawal from social media and even threaten job security. Are the military harassing British citizens?
I called the 77th Brigade and spoke to Major Bruce Weston who handles media enquiries. He was very friendly and very slick and, unsurprisingly, wouldn’t directly answer my questions. I referenced the many negative comments about the 77th on Twitter and he did acknowledge that ‘what you will get from Twitter is the perception that the 77th is people sat behind computers dealing with cyber’.
He did tell me that the 77th ‘have provided a small team from the information and outreach unit, and are supporting the Rapid Response Unit’. I asked how exactly and he retorted that I would ‘have to ask the Cabinet Office’. But do their policies permit direct engagements with British citizens to attack their views on social media, I wondered? ‘We are part of the 6th Division of the army,’ he said, ‘and we are bound by policies and frameworks that all parts of the army will work within.’ I approached the Cabinet Office as he suggested and got precisely nowhere.
Humans are naturally excellent at some forms of identification. We recognise sex, for instance. Obviously that’s handy from an evolutionary perspective. We also recognise inauthenticity in language and communication. A sad fact of social media is that it is now littered with accounts that appear to be ‘bots’ or deceptive accounts of some kind. Bots are automated accounts, running on code, and can be bought in bulk for covert use. Subtle linguistic clues can give them away. Deceptive accounts, troll accounts (like the Chinese ‘50c army’) are more intensive and expensive to operate as they are run by humans. Their giveaways are ‘eggs’ and handles with weird names composed of numbers (as with bots), also accounts who engage with others but people don’t initiate communication with them, and timelines which are ‘one note’. Are some of these run by the 77th? We have no idea.
SAGE AND SPI-B
SAGE is the team of advisers that coordinates scientific advice given to the Cabinet Office decision-makers who attend COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms) meetings. (Don’t those acronyms sound impressive? I think we are meant to deduce that SAGE members are wise and COBRA can st
rike like a snake.) The government will ask questions of SAGE which then coordinates the advice and answers from across multi-disciplinary experts drawn from academia, government and industry.
The SAGE team is the spearhead of three sub-teams working together: New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG); Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B).
SPI-B is the team of behavioural scientists and academic specialists in health psychology, social psychology, anthropology and history, which provides ‘behavioural science advice aimed at anticipating and helping people adhere to interventions that are recommended by medical or epidemiological experts’.25
SPI-B is not tasked with assessing which interventions are effective or analysing the data ingests, but purely with advice to encourage people to adhere to the law and guidance.
To start with, the membership of SAGE was secret, purportedly due to national security. It’s worth noting that there have been many criticisms of the make-up of both SAGE and SPI-B. Remarkably, SAGE does not include disaster recovery specialists, and there is a lack of expertise on risk management and the psychology of risk.
Did the government hide behind the phrase ‘following the science’? Did they hide behind the unelected psychocrats?
JANE, 68
I’ve had anxiety before, but nothing like this. I would try and talk myself down, but a deep part of my brain was telling me I was in terrible danger. It has felt like a bad dream.
The first couple of days of lockdown I was very nervy and scared, I had a cloak of anxiety over my shoulders. To start with I thought it would be six weeks of lockdown, we were in it together and we’d be alright. I think a lot of us felt the same. It’s how it was told to us.
A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic Page 8