Britain's former health secretary Matt Hancock during a briefing on Covid-19. Photo / AP, File
Britain's former health secretary Matt Hancock during a briefing on Covid-19. Photo / AP, File
EDITORIAL
Evidence that English officials planned to induce panic in the population to justify Covid-19 restrictions has opened a window into the darker world of political manipulation and coercion during the time of global crisis.
This week it was revealed that the UK’s former Health Secretary plotted to “deploy anew variant” of Covid-19 to “frighten the pants off everyone” into complying with a lockdown.
Damning text messages between Matt Hancock and media adviser Damon Poole in the run-up to Christmas 2020 show the behind-the-scenes plot to use “Project Fear” to prepare the British public for another Covid lockdown.
In one conversation on December 13, Poole informed his boss that Conservative MPs were “furious already about the prospect” of stricter Covid measures and suggested “rather than doing too much forward signalling, we can roll pitch with the new strain”.
“We frighten the pants of [sic] everyone with the new strain,” Hancock agreed. “Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour [sic] change,” Poole said.
“When do we deploy the new variant?” Hancock inquired, to which Poole warned of a need to be “cautious”, saying the “big risk with the variant” was that “right wing papers go for a renewed push for let it rip on the basis the vaccines strategy is undermined”.
The English public may not have been surprised, having already made the measure of the man when he was forced to resign over an affair with his aide, in breach of social distancing rules. Maybe not surprised but still outraged. Former NHS surgeon Anthony Hinton blasted the “made up theatre”. “These people should be in prison.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock in an embrace with a senior aide in violation of social-distancing rules. Photo / Supplied, File
It’s clear English officials were panicked into some very poor decision-making. British authorities’ use of so-called “nudge” tactics to scare the public into Covid compliance has previously come under fire, with a group of psychologists last year describing behaviour of civil servants and government scientists as “grossly unethical”.
The revelations have also inevitably raised concerns about whether any similar tactics were considered or even deployed here in New Zealand. it’s to be hoped the impending Royal Inquiry into New Zealand’s response will clear up this concern.
It is worth bearing in mind, however, there were known failures around New Zealand’s pandemic response but it was a far cry from the shambles in the United Kingdom. England locked down late, opened up early, and relied initially on the less effective AstraZeneca vaccine.
By the time Hancock and Poole were exchanging these messages, Britain already had Europe’s deadliest outbreak, with more than 43,000 confirmed deaths, and Northern Ireland had the highest infection rate in the UK.
Then Prime Minister Boris Johnson had ignored scientific advisers’ recommendations for a tougher approach to tackling the pandemic, including a two- to three-week national lockdown to try to contain rapidly rising infection rates. Lacking clearly communicated leadership, England was adrift in a tide of coronavirus infection and deaths.
The resulting actions by the UK health secretary and his advisor were as deplorable as they were desperate.
