It has been widely reported that in tackling the Covid crisis, the UK government has been selective in its use of ‘science’ and data and has made widespread use of behavioural science to ‘nudge’ and coerce people into following its strategies. But despite being somewhat successful in the short-term, it now looks like the use of such tactics could eventually create even more sickness!
Throughout the pandemic, research has consistently showed that a large percentage of the UK population have experienced increasingly high levels of anxiety, levels that are worse than in other countries.
The government has itself acknowledged that its use of ‘fear’ may have gone too far and the surprising success of their tactics may now be making it harder to open up society again. In fact, the process may have been so successful that some people may end up with permanent levels of heightened anxiety and some of their new behaviours may never change.
There are also widespread reports of anger amongst other people who feel that the government’s approach has been draconian and unfair. To them, the effect of lockdowns, restrictions and coercion has seemed disproportionate and poorly targeted and the effect on their own autonomy and livelihoods has led to levels of internalised resentment, resulting in their own growing physical and mental issues.
“Politicians and governments are suppressing science for political and financial gain.” Kamran Abbasi, Executive Editor, British Medical Journal (1).
What was wrong with the tactics?
But exactly what was wrong with the tactics and why might they end up leading to more harm than good?
In the early days of Covid, the government reportedly favoured a light-touch policy more consistent with what they considered ‘British values’, but once other governments moved towards more hard-line policies, it feared looking like an outlier and inevitably ended up following suit.
However, such hard-line policies with their necessary streak of authoritarianism probably didn’t sit well with the Conservative government.
To dilute their responsibility for such an approach, the government decided to put scientists in the driving seat. But, as in all walks of life, they quickly found that scientists rarely agree on anything and that sometimes their findings sit in a vacuum and fail to live up to real-world applications. They therefore saw a need to control and ‘manoeuvre’ the science and data, in order to arrive at the decisive message they needed.
To do this, the government went about selecting a group of scientists who tended to see things their way and appointed them to a stable of ‘independent’ advisory committees. They then sort to select all the ‘bits’ of the science and data that agreed with their position and at the same time sort to discredit and marginalise any scientist or commentator with any alternative facts or ideas. In fact, to maintain a clear message they even leant on social media platforms and search engines to downplay or even ban any expert or commentator who might have other ideas.
Feeding the preferred data to these ‘independent’ committees, they then asked them to give advice based on it, insisting that they reach a consensus in order to avoid any committee member not being ‘on message’.
They then went about writing up the committee’s advice into a succession of regular and repetitive press releases based on their ‘findings’ and added their own ‘behavioural science’ to turn the advice into ‘nudges’ or, if that didn’t work, turn up the dial to ‘fear’.
To spread the ‘guidance’, they instructed Ofcom to ‘persuade’ the mainstream media that in the national interest they should publish the instructions without any ‘disruptive’ criticism. In particular, they used their influence on the BBC to get them to not only publish the data without question, but also to produce endless ‘emotive’ pieces that maximised the ‘scariness’ of the situation in people’s minds.
To further reinforce their messages, they also insisted that all public transport hubs and other places of public gathering, either play back-to-back public messages over their tannoys or put up signs and instil messages to make sure their carefully selected ‘slogans’ got properly into people’s heads.
Finally, to complete the full psychological circle, they commissioned and encouraged opinion polls of all those who had soaked up their persuasive message, to demonstrate that ‘most people’ were in full agreement with their policies and used the results to sow doubt in the minds of any individual or academic with more ‘free-flowing’ thoughts, showing them and their potential supporters that they were clearly in the minority.
With this water-tight process in place, they indeed achieved a clear narrative and anyone who disagreed was given nowhere to vent their frustration, except amongst themselves or through demonstrations that were also supressed and generally ignored by the ‘on-side’ media.
But whilst being effective for the majority and welcomed by those who were most vulnerable to the virus, these methods now seem to have been ‘too effective’ on impressionable people and additionally infuriating for those who felt less vulnerable and whose livelihoods were badly affected.
And the consequences of this collateral damage are now becoming apparent.
The extent of the anxiety created amongst those who soaked up the fear is staggering. Some surveys suggest that a third of the population now have heightened anxiety; that’s more than 20m people, and many of those were people who were never susceptible to severe symptoms.
There has also been a huge amount of resentment from scientists, academics and ‘free-thinkers’ who disagreed with the methods used and considered themselves ‘cancelled’ or marginalised as a result, giving them feelings of disempowerment and oppression that may never dissipate.
Furthermore, the government’s use of such tactics has undeniably created a more ‘paternal’ and authoritarian environment where people feel that the government tells them what to do, more like China is today. This is particularly worrying for children in their formative years who will now grow up with this style of government feeling more like the norm.
As the pandemic has evolved, many commentators and academics have also started to realise the grave implications that creeping paternal approach may end up having on free expression, open debate and civil liberties, fearing that it will simply encourage homogonous citizens, all encouraged to think and behave in the same way.
They fear that anyone with a different view of life will inevitably feel unwelcome and marginalised. Caught in the cross-fire of measures they disagree with, they will have had no choice but to accept them or try to escape them. Their resultant helplessness and feelings of dependency will lead to increased levels of internalised stress with all the extra lifestyle problems and illnesses that this will inevitably create.
So, whilst the government may say that its tactics have saved hundreds of thousands of vulnerable lives, they may also have created a divisiveness in society that will result in long lasting anxiety for millions and internalised anger for millions more.
If you would like to try to reduce any new anxieties or anger that the Covid environment has created, then take a look at a series of short videos I created during Covid here. It will help you to identify the signs of over-thinking and show you ways to improve your mental health resilience.
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4425
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