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

by Laura Dodsworth

  The rise of catchphrases such as the politics of fear, fear of crime and fear of the future is testimony to the cultural significance of fear today. Many of us seem to make sense of our experiences through the narrative of fear. Fear is not simply associated with high-profile catastrophic threats such as terrorist attacks, global warming, AIDS or a potential flu pandemic; rather, as many academics have pointed out, there are also the ‘quiet fears’ of everyday life.’

  Furedi notes that fear is often said to be the defining cultural mood in contemporary society. These fears have led to the ascendancy of public health and safetyism and the heavy leaning on the precautionary principle. The terrain could not have been better ploughed and prepared to grow fear in an epidemic.

  History shows us that mass delusions will come and go. Are we particularly susceptible to fear and mass delusions now? When I interviewed psychologist Patrick Fagan, he told me he believes ‘we need a discussion about the level of emotional bombardment from all sources: apps, social media, television, government messaging. We’re being blown about by our passions. There is a perception that modern technology has made us more rational, when the truth is probably the inverse. Research has shown that smartphones, social media, and the internet more broadly tend to produce a shallower style of thinking – that is, more emotional, more impulsive, and more stereotyped. One paper outlined a case study of a woman driven to psychosis by Twitter, seeing patterns in tweets’ characters in a way eerily reminiscent of QAnon. This is all to say nothing of the well-established effect of news content on poor mental wellbeing. Being bombarded with emotional and impulsive content and notifications on a continual basis likely makes us more susceptible to mass hysteria than ever.’

  We may look back and wonder if social contagion was more of a threat than epidemic contagion. Social media is awash with bots and trolls, while clever data analytic campaigns behind the scenes manipulate the emotional temperature. And on social media, news travels fast. The study Bad news has wings: dread risk mediates social amplification in risk communication2 examined how bad news stories can turn into mass hysteria when passed from person to person through social media channels. Stories became more negative and tended towards fear and panic as they passed through a message chain.

  Think back to those first Chinese videos of ‘Stunt Covid’ which were viewed many millions of times. Rapid mainstream media coverage ensued, fanning the flames of fear. Social media was the perfect terrain of dry tinder to exaggerate fears. Ideally, mainstream media would dispassionately report and also vigorously fact-check and verify sources, but that didn’t always happen. Chapter 2, ‘Fear spreads in the media like an airborne virus’, looked at the various ways in which the media was complicit in leveraging fear, not least in compensating journalists who generate the most clicks. Finally, at this stage, the fire raging, do you want your government to attend to the flames with bellows or a fire hose?

  Recent governments have presided over and benefited from evolving behavioural science, data analytics and propaganda techniques. Dominic Cummings, the political strategist and former chief advisor to Boris Johnson, has been open about the role of data science in the Leave campaign. At the Ogilvy ‘Nudgestock Conference’ in 2017, he said: ‘The future will be about experimental psychology, and data science. The reality is that most communications companies are populated by bullshitting charlatans, and most of them should be fired. Silicon Valley will take over this industry in the same way they’ve taken over other industries.’3

  The current government has become expert in ‘blowing us about by our passions’. One of the memorable Vote Leave videos was made by agency Topham Guerin, and featured Boris Johnson starring in a pastiche of a Love Actually scene. It was amusing but insubstantial puff. If the country votes for leaders based on that level of messaging, it’s no surprise we are still being blown about by the same puff. From social media shtick to sophisticated data analytics, we are being manipulated in increasingly effective ways.

  There is obviously a need for a robust, honest public inquiry into the management of the Covid-19 epidemic. As a result of my investigations I offer suggestions for some calls to action in the sections below. This book’s most important clarion call is for a specific inquiry into the use of behavioural science by government.

  How we make sure this never happens again:

  1. EVIDENCE-BASED PANDEMIC PLANNING AND PREPAREDNESS

  It’s worth repeating the following quote from the anonymous scientific advisor deeply embedded in Whitehall. They told me they warned government that there would be severe consequences for excess deaths if the country locked down. ‘Lockdown was not the way to go,’ they said. ‘Bluntly, you should try and power through an epidemic. Lockdown was obviously going to tank the economy. We have never trained for a lockdown like this. You don’t do it for a coronavirus. I’ve been through all my papers. It’s just not something we do.’

  But we did do it. Strangely, the narrative in the media and from politicians drifts further towards the idea that we should have locked down earlier and harder. It is still too early to proffer the absolute judgement on excess mortality and the costs and benefits of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions. A robust and honest inquiry must do this.

  Lucy Easthope told me that the UK’s response has been ‘what I would expect to see for a much worse disease. There are no secret plans for a more serious disease like Ebola. People don’t know what has been lost for a coronavirus. There wouldn’t be a greater loss of liberty for any other disease. This was a massive over-reaction. One of the main problems is we don’t have enough critical care beds for an epidemic. We didn’t have the PPE. And the government tore up the pandemic plans.’

  Why didn’t the UK follow the existing evidence-based and rehearsed protocols? Chapter 2, ‘Fear spreads in the media like an airborne virus’, offered explanations about the pressures which came from social media, and possible bad state actors operating through social media, as well as the traditional press and broadcast media. Chapter 4, ‘Fear is a page of the government playbook’, looked at how governments use fear to (not necessarily deliberately) ratchet in size and to advance other interests. And I also explored the political bias and motivations of various advisory panels and the ‘psychocrats’ who have assumed so much power in the decision-making. But there is another more prosaic reason.

  Robert Dingwall told me that ‘the infrastructures for pandemic planning had been disbanded and the people involved had dispersed. The Department for Health was never supposed to have the role it has taken on. The Cabinet Office for Civil Emergencies Unit should have led across government.’ He explained that plans and documentation are simply not always handed over from one generation of civil servants to the next. Think of our pandemic preparedness as languishing in a forgotten filing cabinet.

  2. RESPONSIBLE MEDIA

  In one of the most unsurprising findings ever, a Dutch study4 found that exposure to media increased fear. One take-away from the study was that ‘stronger messages in the media may induce more fear and therefore more compliance with the social distancing and lockdown policies imposed. However, we caution against using media messages to induce more fear in the general public. There is evidence that suggests that such “fear appeals” do not work very well to promote behaviour change, particularly when people have little coping strategies. Under such circumstances, which may apply to the current COVID-19 crisis, it may not be very helpful to maximise fear, as this may only increase distress. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of respondents in our sample was concerned about the role of (social) media, mass panic, and hysteria. Hence, fear appeals in the media should be used carefully and whether fear appeals work for the current situation requires empirical evaluation.’

  Where government and their advisors are using the media to convey policies, to leak news, or for advertising, this is a very important finding to consider. The ‘Fourth Estate’ has played an enormous role in the behaviour but also the mental h
ealth of the population and now in the slow advancement of post-pandemic recovery.

  Sometimes the media created insecurities where there were none. We’ve been here before. Stefanie Grupp wrote in Political implications of a discourse of fear: the mass mediated discourse of fear in the aftermath of 9/11 that ‘fear is decreasingly experienced first-hand and increasingly experienced on a discursive and abstract level’. She also wrote that ‘there has been a general shift from a fearsome life towards a life with fearsome media’. It is incumbent on the traditional and social media platforms and outlets to consider their responsibility to their audience in terms of verifying information, and prioritising verified news over clickbait.

  A public inquiry should consider: the effect of Ofcom’s strict guidance during the epidemic, which stifled essential debate; the incentives and remuneration of journalists to produce clickbait which stokes fear and hysteria; the nature of relationships between editorial and politicians, which is on a scale from uncritical reporting of a ministerial policy to the rumour that there is an MI5 operative in every newsroom; and whether the government’s advertising spend compromised editorial integrity.

  Big Tech companies wield enormous power in defining the acceptable framework for debate. Their censorship of credible scientists and news articles needs close scrutiny. Also, the social media giants are permitting bad actors to run amok, covertly manipulating public opinion with the use of bot and troll Twitter campaigns and ‘fake’ grassroots campaigns. Just what are they doing about that? Even more disturbingly, these bad actors may even be UK government departments.

  3. EXPERT PANELS

  All science is inherently political, and the social sciences are thought to be particularly so. There is a natural tendency for those heading up panels to recruit those who think like them. Checks and balances are needed to make sure that panels include different academic disciplines, industry backgrounds, and political beliefs, and that group participation is structured to permit and encourage challenge and debate. Lucy Easthope recommends that panels ‘should also be made to operate adversarially so somebody could argue against their science.’

  We can’t fix our basic psychological make-up but we can ameliorate it. I heard from different sources while I was investigating this book that ‘wild cards’ and dissenters were edged out of advisory panels. This is dangerous. MP Steve Baker said in the House of Commons that ‘we need to introduce competitive expert advice with red team challenge, because experts are only human and we have been asking the impossible of them in the context of the challenges that they face.’5

  4. INDIVIDUAL ACTION

  Asking you not to be frightened is futile. Fear is hardwired. In fact, to disregard fear would be to put ourselves in mortal danger. We feel fear for a reason. Our evolved psychology and physiology dispose us towards fearing actual and potential threats. To conclude this book by asking you never to feel fear again, to simply switch it off, would be impossible and harmful. But what action can you take to inoculate yourself from disproportionate fear?

  My own investigation of fear in the last year has taught me that, regrettably, we must evaluate the claims of those in power, and be sceptical of information from even our most trusted sources. I don’t want to suggest you live life in a state of perpetual hyper-vigilance and scepticism; that would be exhausting. However, there are some simple actions you can take to help you achieve balance.

  In an article about fear and politics, Leonie Huddy, Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said, ‘some media outlets are more likely than others to carry highly emotional content which can exacerbate anxiety. There is evidence that highly emotional content is more likely to be shared on social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, and it may be better to avoid reading news on those platforms and consume less highly-charged coverage that is more common on mainstream news platforms’.6 Quite obviously, turning off the TV and internet news dams the river of doom. Some of the people I interviewed about fear were able to reach a happier place simply by turning off the news. Lockdown and self-isolation led to greater social atomisation, and people developed tunnel thinking. They were able to put their fears into perspective just by meeting up with others socially.

  Taking action can also be helpful. It’s been inspiring to witness community support and outreach for the isolated during lockdown, and also the swelling of activism. Despite the restrictions on gatherings, political protest was not truly illegal, and people were able to express their political will and agency through demonstrations and protests.

  The other way out of this is to start disregarding the ‘rituals of fear’ as soon as possible. Masks, dots on the floor and social distancing may be required according to government policy, but they keep us separate from each other. Human connections help us feel good and isolation increases anxiety and depression. Some of this was inevitable. According to psychologist Patrick Fagan, ‘The behavioural immune system is our evolutionarily hardwired response to the threat of disease, and it has a raft of predictable outcomes – including becoming less tolerant and more insular. In short, focusing on purity will turn people into puritans.’ Various research studies show that contagious diseases encourage intolerance and conformity, a psychological response designed to keep us safe when there are infectious diseases.7 We shun outsiders and express disgust about things that could be dirty and contagious. But we are through the teeth of the crisis and to rebuild society and mental health we need connection, faces, hugs and conviviality.

  If you have read this far, then I hope A State of Fear has helped you. Once you know how nudge works, it is much easier to spot it happening. You should be more psychologically resistant to behavioural psychology techniques, including the weaponisation of fear. Think of this book as an anti-nudge handbook. Patrick Fagan has kindly shared an excerpt from an essay which continues this ‘Fight back against the nudge’ in Appendix 3.

  5. AN INQUIRY INTO THE ROLE OF BEHAVIOURAL PSYCHOLOGY AND NUDGING

  Cass Sunstein, the godfather of nudge, said that humans are more like Homer Simpson than homo economicus.8 It’s not a great compliment. Well, behavioural psychologists are humans too. What of their limitations, and those of the politicians who wield nudge to influence and manipulate us? Psychology has been used to understand, influence and help individuals. I believe it is now time for us, the individuals, to ask psychologists to turn their expertise back on themselves and on the government. How did their fears influence them? Why did they weaponise our fear against us?

  In March 2020, an induction into a ‘Cult of Fear’ started without us even being aware of it. It began with our leader telling us to stay in our homes, except for necessary and reasonable exemptions, and obviously the Thursday evening ritualistic clapping and pot-banging for the NHS. It continued with the government attempting to manage the minutiae of our lives, including the advice to take our own serving spoons to someone else’s house for Christmas dinner.

  Fear messaging was used to encourage compliance with the rules. This has changed our lives and our relationships with each other. It has also changed our relationship with the government. This was predicted in the report MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy,9 which warned:

  ‘People have a strong instinct for reciprocity that informs their relationship with government – they pay taxes and the government provides services in return. This transactional model remains intact if government legislates and provides advice to inform behaviour. But if government is seen as using powerful, pre-conscious effects to subtly change behaviour, people may feel the relationship has changed: now the state is affecting “them” – their very personality.’

  Indeed, the use of behavioural psychology and specifically fear has affected our personalities, our mental health, our sense of agency. And this model of governance has been followed without the public consultation that the same document proposed.

  David Halpern has said that ‘if national or local governments are to
use these approaches, they need to ensure that they have public permission to do so – i.e. that the nudge is transparent, and that there has been appropriate debate about it’.10 Furthermore, the MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy discussion document he co-authored recommended a public consultation about the use of behavioural insights.

  The Science and Technology Select Committee’s 2011 report Behaviour Change11 noted that there are ‘ethical issues because they involve altering behaviour through mechanisms of which people are not obviously aware’ and ‘ethical acceptability depends to a large extent on an intervention’s proportionality’. Well, using fear to make people obey lockdown rules was a huge intervention.

  The report goes on to acknowledge that changing people’s behaviour is controversial and that the ‘evidence-base of any proposed behaviour change intervention’ and ‘why it is a necessary and proportionate means of addressing a well-defined problem’ should be given. Evidence and a cost-benefit analysis for non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns, tier restrictions and face coverings, was not submitted to MPs or the public.

  The report also makes an important point that the government argues that non-regulatory approaches are more ‘respectful of the freedom of the individual’ but that the report authors disagree. Well, quite.

  Since 2010 there have been a few gentle suggestions that consultation and debate about the ethics of behavioural psychology are needed. We are still waiting. I emailed the Behavioural Insights Team in December 2020 and March 2021 to ask David Halpern for his views about why the public have not been consulted about the use of the MINDSPACE and EAST behavioural psychology tools. Halpern and BIT did not reply. I also asked Laura de Moliere, Head of Behavioural Science at the Cabinet Office, and again received no reply.