18. Happy endings are not written in the language of coercive control
19. Making sure it never happens again
20. The end, or is it a prequel?
Appendix 1: Data
Appendix 2: Lockdowns don’t work
Appendix 3: Fight back against the nudge
Acknowledgements
References
Index
INTERVIEWS
Darren, 64
Sarah, 85, by her daughter
Susan, 15, by her grandmother
Jane, 68
Austin, 75
Anonymous
Dave, hospital doctor
Mavis, 35
Emily, 45, nurse
Rosie, 13, by her mother
Mark, 44
Jimmy, 32, by his mother
Joseph, 60, counsellor
Sam, 30, paramedic
Ella, 47
Names have been changed to protect anonymity.
‘The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.’
From Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures, by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), 22 March 2020.
INTRODUCTION
This is a book about fear. Fear of a virus. Fear of death. Fear of change, fear of the unknown. Fear of ulterior motives, agenda and conspiracy. Fear for the rule of law, democracy, the western liberal way of life. Fear of loss: losing our jobs, our culture, our connections, our health, our minds. It’s also about how the government weaponised our fear against us – supposedly in our best interests – until we were one of the most frightened countries in the world.
In one of the most extraordinary documents ever revealed to the British public, the behavioural scientists advising the UK government recommended that we needed to be frightened. The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) said in their report Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures,1 dated 22 March 2020, that ‘a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened; it could be that they are reassured by the low death rate in their demographic group, although levels of concern may be rising’. As a result they recommended that ‘the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging’. In essence, the government was advised to frighten the British public to encourage adherence to the emergency lockdown regulations.
And frighten us they did. This book explores why the government used fear, the specific tactics, the people behind them, and the impacts of fear, including stories from people who were undone by fear during the epidemic. Most of all, this book asks you to think about the ethics of using fear to manage people.
Fear is the most powerful of emotions and, as emotions are stronger than thoughts, fear can overpower the clearest of minds. We shouldn’t feel bad about being frightened. From an evolutionary perspective, it is key to our survival: it protects us from danger. And that is precisely what makes fear one of the most powerful tools in behavioural psychology.
This exploration of fear led me to interview people who have been too frightened to leave their homes all year, ‘conspiracy theorists’, psychologists, some of the behavioural scientists who advised government, scientists, politicians, doctors, pandemic planners and journalists.
By the end of March 2021, Covid had been involved in the deaths of 2.8 million2 people globally. The disease will continue to kill more, even though hopefully the biggest waves are behind us in the UK. The aim of this book is not to refute that Covid-19 is a serious disease that has killed people, most particularly the elderly and those with certain underlying health conditions, especially dementia, Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes and hypertensive diseases, among others.3 The aim of this book is to explore our fear response and whether it was ethical and wise for the government to deliberately frighten the population. Was the government’s response proportional? Wouldn’t people have cautiously tempered their behaviour during an epidemic in the interests of self-preservation and community spirit? What are the unintended consequences of frightening a population? In the years and inquiries to follow, the management of this epidemic must be forensically and honestly examined. A State of Fear asks that we also interrogate the behavioural science approach to managing people’s emotions and behaviour.
Covid-19 has become another of the many endemic viruses we have to live with. It was known from the beginning to be a ‘very mild illness’4 for nearly all of us. The UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Patrick Vallance, stated this publicly on 13 March 2020. Experience has proven that correct; Covid was not lethal or dangerous to the vast majority. Vaccines and treatments were developed at miraculous speed to protect the vulnerable. So what are we still afraid of? The third wave, a fourth wave – a fifth wave? – winter recurrences, mutations, future viruses and the unknown haunt us.
From roadside signs telling us to ‘Stay Alert’, the incessantly doom-laden media commentary, to masks literally keeping the fear in our face, we’ve become afraid of each other. Humans are now vectors of transmission, agents of disease. We have become afraid of our own judgement about how to manage the minutiae of our lives, from who to hug to whether to share a serving spoon. Apparently, we even need guidance about whether we can sit next to a friend on a bench. But perhaps we need to be more afraid of how easily manipulated we can be.
Some will believe that leveraging our fear can be justified, if it is in our best interests. If you agree that ‘Covid-19 is the biggest threat this country has faced in peacetime history’, as the government asserted in its consultation document Changes to Human Medicine Regulations to support the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, you might think it was not only acceptable but desirable to scare the British public into complying with regulations that resulted in the greatest imposition on our liberty in peacetime. If you obtained all your information about the epidemic from Number 10 press briefings that might be your mindset.
Tactics to quell debate and censor dissent mean that information presented in this book may feel new, even challenging. It can be psychologically uncomfortable to encounter contradictory information. We don’t like to believe we can be manipulated, let alone that we have been manipulated – this
