A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic by Laura Dodsworth (feel good novels .TXT) 📕

way people think. And it’s paid for from government money.’ Hang on a minute, government money? You mean our money – this is funded by the taxpayers, isn’t it? They concurred. When you think about it, it’s quite amazing that we’re paying to be subconsciously manipulated by our own government.

Adil Ray, a British actor and presenter, launched a video3 to promote vaccine take-up in ethnic minorities on 25 January 2021. It was rapturously received and shared by celebrities, politicians and the media. The video made strong claims about the vaccine. It also followed on the back of two relevant SPI-B papers that I had just read.

There are issues with the take up of vaccines among ethnic communities in Britain and the video obviously aimed to dispel myths and encourage confidence. According to a government paper, Factors influencing COVID-19 vaccine uptake among minority ethnic groups,4 published on 17 December 2020, ‘white groups’ are 70% likely to take various vaccines, whereas only 50% of ‘Black African and Black Caribbean groups’5 are likely to be vaccinated.

The paper suggested ‘culturally tailored communication, shared by trusted sources’, such as ‘educational videos’ to ‘increase awareness’ and ‘address misperceptions’. Importantly, such communications should not be ‘affiliated with government or formal healthcare services’ in order to be ‘more trusted by some groups’. The report also recommended providing immunisations in community-based settings and religious sites. Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government, also talked about the importance of this as he visited the UK’s first vaccination centre in a mosque6 – the plan clearly put into action. As Dr Daisy Fancourt had told me, it ‘mustn’t look like it’s propaganda. It needs to come from… influencers’. The key word is ‘look’ – it mustn’t look like propaganda, even if it is.

A report, Role of Community Champions networks to increase engagement in context of COVID-19: evidence and best practice,7 published on 22 October 2020, recommended the use of community champions in health contexts where trust is low. Since that report, over £23 million of funding has been allocated to 60 councils and voluntary groups across England to expand work to support those most at risk from Covid-19 and boost vaccine take-up.8

Was Adil Ray’s video part of a government-initiated campaign to increase trust and confidence in the vaccination programme? It seemed to tick SPI-B’s boxes. The video finished with an end credit saying that it was ‘recorded independently from the government’. The word ‘recorded’ is telling. Could it have been conceived by the government, or scripted by the government, or given PR support by the government? And if not the government, could an intermediary agency employed by a unit like RICU at the Home Office have kickstarted it? If it was created at an arm’s length from the government, the people involved with the video might have no idea there was any government connection at all.

As with Clap for Carers, I don’t want to denigrate the intentions of the campaign or the people involved, but to draw attention to possible covert psychological manipulation, which I believe deserves public scrutiny.

Like Clap for Carers, the video was also instantly and positively shared by celebrities, the media and politicians, which indicates helpful hands behind the scenes, although it’s possible that the famous faces in the video may have propelled it into the spotlight on their own. But as with Clap for Carers, I found obtaining answers difficult, which is suspicious. And I’m told by those on the inside that this is one of the hallmarks of a government propaganda campaign.

I tweeted Ray to say I was going to write about the video and that I had some questions. I asked if it had been produced independently or by an agency, and he said ‘we produced it with lots of help, but no agency’. Nevertheless, when I said I had questions, he passed me on to an agency – Samir Ahmed, founder of Media Hive agency. On the agency website it says Ahmed has worked with ‘Bollywood stars and YouTube sensations to UK politicians and global philanthropists’. (Politicians?) Ahmed said he couldn’t help with my questions either.

I tried to fact-check the claims in the video with the NHS, MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care. They aren’t the easiest press teams to deal with, but in a really poor show, I only received opaque responses to my fact-checking questions from the MHRA – the others ignored my emails and calls. The Cabinet Office did reply to tell me that the video was ‘not part of a government campaign’.

As I was finding it hard to make headway, I contacted the anonymous scientist for an opinion. ‘Ah yes, this video is Nudge 101,’ they sagely observed, ‘and the fact that no one is answering you and you are being fobbed off means it’s come out of the government.’ I called the ex-government propaganda contact: ‘I only had to watch the first few seconds to see it’s come out of a government department. It’s an openly discussed problem that the Muslims don’t trust the government and this is their solution. Put it this way, white people sit around in a room saying brown people are the problem, then they use brown people to fix the problem. It’s not sophisticated. If you approached the people who made it and they bounced it around and wouldn’t answer you, that’s typical of something that’s been done with government in the background. It’s the kind of thing we used to do when I worked at the agency.’

I emailed Samir Ahmed at the agency in ‘one last try’ as my book manuscript deadline was looming. His reply was interesting: ‘Hi Laura, I believe you’ve been in touch with Cabinet Office comms etc as well so you should be able to get something from them. Unfortunately I’m just not the best person to direct questions to as I’ve mentioned before. Thanks, Samir.’ I’d been told by Adil Ray