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

and Don’ts for all messaging, documents and “communications” in the widest sense 132

Organisation for Propaganda Studies 55

Orwell, George 122

othering 54, 106, 120

outsider, fear of being an 67

Overton window 110–11

Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine 52, 153, 182, 275

Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government 271

Packard, Vance 44

paid promotions 137

pandemic planning 9, 62, 162–3, 169, 205, 253–5, 271

Papyrus 167

parliamentary scrutiny 221–2

Patel, Priti 173

paternalism 62, 243

patients, defining 160

‘patients admitted’ metric 149–50

Paton, David 147, 148, 153, 276

Paxton, Roger 186

PCR test 52–3, 158–9, 272

Pearson, Allison 23

peer pressure 198, 200, 246

Pennington, Hugh 116–17

performativity 47, 122

personal responsibility 54, 250, 267

Pfizer vaccine 132–3

phantom enemies 47–8

pharmaceutical contracts 212

physical health effects 231–2, 239

placebic information 116

Plas, Annemarie 94–5, 123–4, 125

pleasure principle 42

police

administering fines 110

at anti-lockdown protests 50

block policing 88

enforcement of legislation/guidance 220, 221

public doing the job of 114

technology 224

political accountability 26, 241

political journalists 28

politicians’ own fear 24

polling 117, 149, 249

Portugal 52, 158–9

posters 108, 117, 120, 127, 264

power

abuses of 223

accretion above democratic oversight 71

behavioural psychology 63

government-media-public relationship 27–8

pandemic as excuse to grab 90

and propaganda 42

power of three 106

PPE (personal protective equipment) 113–14, 163, 168–9, 193, 254

precautionary principle 9, 151, 251

pre-set options 101

Press Gazette 26

presumed infectious 51–2, 53

Prevent 45–6, 63

priming 13, 101, 111, 114, 280

printing money 209, 210

prison terminology 53

privacy 224 see also surveillance

‘project fear’ 41

projection 213

propaganda

biased information as 30

Clap for Carers 122–5

and cults 197

disguised as ‘influence’ 129

government use of 41–2, 43, 55–6, 64, 65, 94–5, 116–17, 128–30

London Bridge terror attacks (2017) 126

mass media 27

outsourced to agencies 127

social media 20, 139

suppression of dissent 204

unconscious forces 244

vaccines 87, 245–6

prophecies, failed 200

proportionality 61–2, 70, 219, 260

Propublica 20

prosecutions 221

‘protect the NHS’ 100, 105

protest, right to 49–51, 54, 82, 173, 222, 257–8, 267 see also anti-lockdown protests

psychic epidemics 214–15

psychoanalysis 42

psychocracy 70–5, 254, 262

psychological abuse 117, 141

psychological warfare 73, 116

psychotherapy 214

psyops 19, 43, 73, 126, 147

Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee 109, 262

public consultation 62

Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 205, 218, 219, 226

Public Health England 29, 52, 59, 130, 132, 157, 163, 246–7, 262

public health policy 29–30

public opinion polls 149, 249

Publich 152–3

pubs 68–9, 106–7, 173–4, 247

punishments 82–3, 101, 109–10, 243 see also fines

QALYs (Quality Adjusted Life Years) 150–1, 219, 274

quarantining the healthy 49, 202, 218, 272

questioning the established narrative, dangers of 184–6

R number 48, 146–7, 175

Raab, Dominic 49

race 134–5, 136, 221

radicalisation 46, 128, 138

‘radicals’ 64

Radio 4 22, 25, 109

rainbows 94, 127, 180

‘rallying around the flag’ 44

randomised controlled trials (RCTs) 29, 111, 113, 271

Rapid Response Unit 63, 71–2, 73

ratchet effect 45, 128, 254

rationality 47, 54, 58, 62, 68, 83, 104, 244, 252, 279, 280

Ray, Adil 128–9, 130, 135–6

Reachwell 184

reality principle 42

rebels 85, 112

recoveries, unreported 5, 23, 26, 29, 76, 115, 146

Recovery 120

recovery, inhibited by fear 236–7

red, use of 108, 118, 264

red team challenges 256

Rees-Mogg, Jacob 181

Reicher, Stephen 109, 137, 262

relative risk 90, 98

released deliberately, virus could be 206

religion 179–80, 197, 234

repetition 106

resilience, staged 126

Reuters 24

rewards 101, 107, 202, 243

RICU (Research, Information and Communications Unit) 63, 71, 126, 127, 131, 138

right-wing politics 90, 183, 192

riots 82, 127, 208

risk

being a risk (not just at risk) 118

overestimated by public 105

perceptions of 46, 105, 242, 267

psychology of 75

relative risk 90, 98

risk aversion on advisory panels 248

risk management expertise on SAGE 75

transparency 91

vaccines 136, 245

‘roadmap’ 237

Robinson, Calvin 134

Robinson, Piers 55–6

Role of Community Champions networks (SPI-B, 2020) 87–8, 129

Roosevelt, Frankin D. 264

Royal Society 110–11

rules

adherence to 81, 86, 114, 148, 199, 200, 219–21

breaking 40, 52, 114, 148

lack of understanding about 119

Rwandan genocide 106

safetyism (pursuit of safety) 70, 93, 105, 251, 267

SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) 63, 68–9, 74–5, 78, 81, 175, 192, 212, 272–3

salience 101, 105–6, 115

Santa ad 119

Sargant, William 43, 122, 197, 242

SARS 162

‘save the NHS’ 127

scapegoating 106, 176, 179–93

‘scariants’ 48, 264

schools

closure of 175–6, 219, 225, 272

masks in 91–3

mass testing 159, 176

mental health 91

re-opening of 64, 91, 174, 237

right to education 49, 219

testing programmes 93

Schwab, Klaus 211

science

censorship 55–6

challenging the 85

‘following the’ 67, 68–9, 75, 116, 144

funding 90–1, 188

groupthink 90

interface with politics 67, 81–2, 89–91, 256

narrow basis of 85

scientists’ own fears 90–1

unelected advisory groups 70

Science and Technology Committee 61, 159, 173, 259–60

Scotland 112

Scotsman, The 33

Scottish Independence referendum 41

Scottish Sun, The 34

Scruton, Roger 227–8

seasonality 152, 154, 200, 264

second waves 48, 157, 192

security, sense of 70, 93

‘seeding’ 19, 49, 110–11

‘selfishness’ 54, 106, 107, 173, 176

self-isolation 52, 83, 142–4, 148–9

semiotics 105, 108, 111, 118

Senger, Michael P. 20

sensationalisation 119

sentiment analysis 224

separation from each other 258 see also lockdown; self-isolation; social distancing

sepsis 157

shadows 213–15

Shah, Neil 10–11, 12

shame 8, 114, 120, 144, 181, 198

shielding 14

‘shock and awe’ tactics 66, 147, 156

Shotton, Richard 103, 114–15, 131, 137

Sidley, Gary 60, 62, 103, 185, 186, 246

signage 3, 15, 105, 108, 114, 264

see also posters

signals 111–12, 137

Sikora, Karl 191

simulation models 271, 272, 273

Singer, Margaret Thaler 198

Sky News 24, 34, 35, 36, 76, 108, 135

slogans 105–8

‘slow the spread’ 48

Snapchat 17

Snopes 19

social cohesion 177

social contagion 252

social credit 89, 206

social distancing 40, 173, 220

social media

77th Brigade 73

behavioural science 64

bots 74, 138, 139, 252, 256

censorship 186–7, 191

data analytics 253

dissenting views on 203

fake posts 19–20

first appearances of Covid on 17

government-media-public relationship 256

hashtags 126, 127

and mental wellbeing 255

propaganda 19–20

Rapid Response Unit 71–2

reducing use of 257, 281

sensationalisation 119

and shallow thinking 252

and SPI-B 82

trolls 74, 139, 252, 256

vaccine promotion 137

social proof 103–4

social unrest 82 see also riots

solidarity 68, 86, 92, 112, 144

Spectator, The 191, 274

Spector, Tim 263

SPI-B (Scientific Pandemic

Influenza Group on Behaviour) 63, 65, 74–5, 78–95, 109, 246, 260–1

Spiegelhalter, David 29

SPI-M (Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling) 74, 152

Starmer, Keir 193

statistical models 84, 151–2, 271, 272, 273

statistics 115, 146–60

Statistics Authority, UK 156

‘Stay Alert’ 105–6

Stevens, Simon 115, 154, 156

Stockholm syndrome 271

Stott, Clifford 78, 79–80, 81, 82, 84, 93

stress responses 232, 235

strong man politics 223

Stunt Covid videos 19, 199, 252–3

suicide 140, 167–8, 181–2, 184, 194, 229, 231, 239

SumOfUs 138–9

Sumption, Lord 218–20, 226–7

Sun, The 17, 18, 21, 25, 247 headlines 31, 33, 34, 36

Sunak, Rishi 29

Sunday Times, The 273

sunk cost fallacy 277

Sunstein, Cass 58–9, 258

Super Saturday 173–4

supermarkets 114

super-spreader events 172–6

surveillance 45–6, 47, 188, 192, 224, 267

surveillance stacking 224

Sweden 208, 275–6

symbolism 105, 113, 114, 264

Tablet, The 20

taboos 123

talismans 180

Talk Radio 25

technocracy 70, 85, 212

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus 112, 158

Telegraph 23, 32, 34, 151

temperature-taking 224–5

Terence Higgins Trust 99–100

terrorism 39–40, 45–7, 55, 126

Terrorism Act 2000 46

testing programmes

false positives 155

LFT testing programmes (lateral flow tests) 93, 159, 176, 272

mass testing