No Fear?

I have been busy publishing this month – two new books. The first, ‘Lift Off!’ is my guide, written after nearly 50 years as an entrepreneur, to help others to avoid the potholes I have fallen into, and the snakes I have slid down after a brief spell on the ladders. Many reviewers have been kind enough to report that is essential reading. I am grateful for that. (Click on image to buy)

Out on 30th May, is my second book, ‘Plague of Madness’. This grew from a daily diary I wrote, over the last fifteen months, not about the horrors of Covid-19, but about the handling of it and the descent from common sense to common madness which it has led to. (Click on image to buy)

I thought I had covered just about every madness, but then I came across Laura Dodsworth’s new book ‘A State of Fear’ which has taken the madness to new levels.

‘Foreign holidays are back!’ So said the headlines last week when the Government’s “green list” of safe countries was revealed. Not so fast, warned ministers, telling the public going abroad was “dangerous” and is “not for this year”.

Confused? That’s because you’re meant to be, says Laura Dodsworth, who has spent the past year investigating the Government’s use of behavioural psychology for her new book.

Dodsworth says: “When you create a state of confusion, people become ever more reliant on the messaging,” she says. “Instead of feeling confident about making decisions, they end up waiting for instructions from the Government.”

This week’s chaotic and contradictory advice on travel is all part of the growing use of fear to control the public – a tactic which has been supercharged by the Covid pandemic.

She continues: “It reminds me very much of what the Government was doing at Christmas, when family Christmases were on, then off, then back on, then off again,” she says. “You have got someone tightening the screw, then loosening the screw, then tightening it again. It’s like a torture scenario.”

This technique “infantilises” the public and enables the Government to control behaviour without having to use unpopular legislation – such as making holidays illegal.

Dodsworth reports that she has uncovered evidence of the industrial-scale use of behavioural science in Whitehall and she has also spoken to practitioners who believe it has gone way too far – indeed, one told her they were stunned by the “weaponisation” of fear by Whitehall.

Dodsworth says: “I fervently hope this book is actually going to inspire a much needed conversation about the use of fear, not just in the epidemic, but the way we use behavioural psychology overall. It’s not just a genie that has been let out the bottle. It’s like we’ve unleashed a Hydra and you can keep chopping its head off, but HMG then keeps employing more of these behavioural scientists throughout different government departments. It’s very much how the Government now does business. It’s the business of fear.”

A sub-group of Sage, the Scientific Pandemic Influenza group on Behaviours (SPI-B), had warned that many people “still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened” and that “the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased”.

This has become ‘Exhibit A’ in the case against the Government’s use of alleged covert psychological strategies.

Then there is the Behavioural Insights Team, better known as the “nudge unit”, which has become so successful it is now a semi-independent body advising other countries on how to use nudge theory to the greatest effect.

How’s that for shocking?

Then there is the Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), which, according to Dodsworth, “attempts to covertly engineer the thoughts of people” by providing support to bodies seen by the public as “grassroots” organisations.

And, the Rapid Response Unit, based in Number 10 and the Cabinet Office…

And, as if that was not more than plenty, the Counter Disinformation Cell, attached to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, both of which monitor social media and tackle “fake” news including, Dodsworth claims, YouTube videos by doctors who contradict WHO guidance on Covid.

GCHQ has been involved in combating anti-vaccine messaging, Dodsworth suggests, and military personnel, she claims, are also being used to rebut private citizens who challenge lockdown on social media.

She goes on to report: “I interviewed someone who had worked for one of the agencies that works with RICU,” she says. “They explained that, after the London Bridge terror attack, there were lots of bunches of flowers left at the scene, but some of them were delivered ‘officially’ before the emotional outpouring from the public. It was fascinating.

With the success of the vaccine rollout and the decline in Covid deaths, the Government might have been expected to quietly dial down its use of fear. But Dodsworth believes it is as prevalent as ever. “The Cabinet Office is recruiting three new behavioural scientists this week,” she says. “It’s growing and growing. Right now, I feel we are in a maelstrom of nudge.”

“They are also fear- bombing people over the Indian variant, then love-bombing the vaccine rollout, using carrot and stick to drive vaccine take-up. People need to be given the facts so they can come to an informed decision, rather than being demonised.” “If this was an experiment in a psychology lab, we would have signed consent forms,” she says.

Dodsworth is fiercely patriotic, but has concluded that, in Britain, “We’re a little bit too biddable. “We want to be quiet and to be good and to do the right thing. And it’s very difficult to stand out and be different. The herd mentality has been really encouraged through the use of behavioural psychology. 

A State of Fear by Laura Dodsworth (Pinter & Martin, £9.99)

Great book – a must read.