A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic - Laura Dodsworth (the first e reader .txt) 📗

Speculation about Clap for Carers might appear cynical or ungracious. I don’t want to be. It is also not possible to know what happened, at least at this stage. I can’t write a book about these times, while we are in these times, without a dose of speculation. The whistleblowers, the uncovered documents, the testimonies all come later. I must envisage character motivations before waiting for the plot twists to be neatly tied up. However, the government does have form for either initiating or super-charging propaganda to create the ‘desired’ emotional responses in the population. Breaking stories like this often relies on the anonymous sources, the whistleblowers, not official FOI channels, which is why it’s useful to look at propaganda campaigns in our recent past.

After the terror attacks on London Bridge in 2017, there were bunches of flowers and graffiti messages of solidarity behind the cordons at the scene of the attack. On social media there were outpourings of support and positively-themed hashtags, such as #TurnToLove, #ForLondon and #LoveWillWin. The media resounded with comments from faith leaders and politicians. You probably thought all of this was spontaneous. Some of the flowers might have been – the British public is generous and demonstrative – but much of the response was reportedly pre-planned by the UK government.

Middle East Eye has broken some important stories about the UK government’s staged campaigns to manage the public response to terror attacks, through RICU, the government counter-terror psyops unit, and Breakthrough Media, an agency which has undertaken various campaigns on RICU’s behalf. All of the tactics are guided by the government’s desire for ‘controlled spontaneity’1 to facilitate recovery and to prevent civil unrest in response to terror attacks.

Disaster and recovery planner Lucy Easthope wrote for The Guardian that ‘the “I heart’” messages that appear in cities in the wake of a terrorist attack are not always spontaneous’ but ‘carefully planned in advance’.2 We spoke a few times during the course of researching this book. She told me she herself has penned the pre-emptive plans which include staged displays of positive emotion and resilience. However, after the Manchester bombing, she had a change of heart about the level of guided response when she realised that people needed a window of raw grief: ‘I was wrong to insist in my training that the first message should be “we will overcome” as if the enemy was on the beaches and weakness would be letting someone or something win. Yesterday I realised that the fight rhetoric has gone too far and instead what we need to do is to admit how much this hurts.’

In our recent history, propaganda efforts have so far been largely turned towards attitudinal and behavioural change among Muslims – in other words, changing the way that British Muslims think and act. But perhaps there has been a redirection of efforts towards all of us because the government feared that totalitarian lockdowns would cause riots, as we know from SPI-B papers dedicated to the subject. Is it such a leap of imagination to think that the government either instigated a ritual of ‘controlled spontaneity’ to support the NHS we were purportedly saving, or that it heard of an idea (through a friend of a friend who works at Number 10, say?) and pushed it along with behind the scenes PR help?

Posters and a website were produced by a creative agency pro bono in a generous act of support. As you know, the media lapped up the Clap for Carers story. Very, very few grassroots campaigns go so well, so quickly, unaided. I approached the agency to talk about their involvement but I was triaged and denied an interview. That, in itself, is a little suspicious.

Fortuitously, I managed to track down someone who had worked on multiple propaganda campaigns for RICU. Again, this contributor has to be anonymous to protect their reputation and new career, but also because they signed the Official Secrets Act.

According to my source, propaganda is outsourced from RICU to external agencies who then work with other parties. This enables the government to stay distanced from the propaganda and deny direct involvement. It also means that the parties involved and the people they are trying to influence, who might otherwise be suspicious of the government, are more easily hoodwinked.

My source confirmed the tactics described in the Middle East Eye article. They knew about the bunches of flowers which were organised for the terror scene and the graffiti inside the cordon. They worked on the propaganda hashtags and the videos with positive messaging made by grassroots organisations, who had no idea they were working just one step away from the UK government. ‘How many times can you say #Lovewins?’, they mused, ‘before it starts to lose all meaning?’ They told me that they would be ‘very surprised if the government wasn’t involved in Clap for Carers and putting rainbows in our windows’.

I posed my constant question: was it right for the government to use fear and behavioural psychology techniques to encourage compliance? ‘I think it’s wrong for the government to try and change how we think and feel,’ they said.

My source was keen to stress that all of this propaganda work came out of a well-intentioned government desire – fuelled by pressure from the public and the media – to do something about radicalisation and extremism after the war on terror. However, the efforts became ‘bloated’ and the unit and agency were producing campaigns to ‘justify their existence’. This is the ratchet effect described by Robert Higgs. My source was reluctant to name agencies or individuals they had worked with – even just to satisfy my curiosity and not for the book – because they are ‘good people’ trying to do good work. Also, there’s that Official Secrets Act.

Over time though, my source said the work felt dishonest: ‘Even if the political project is “nice” it’s political and it’s trying to change the