We’re publishing an original piece today by Dr James Moreton Wakeley, a former Parliamentary researcher, about the Government’s shameful use of behavioural science to terrify people into complying with its draconian lockdown edicts. James is involved in Time For Recovery, the group led by Jon Dobinson, which is launching a new campaign later this week to bring greater attention to the Government’s deliberate use of fear and the campaign’s disastrous consequences. One of these consequences is highlighted in HSJ today – NHS hospitals are unable to cope with the surge in admissions of children with mental health problems. Here’s an extract from James’s piece:
Manufacturing and stoking fear to influence behaviour is recognised as deeply unethical. The Covid campaign of fear flies in the face of the British Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics and Conduct, which is based in part on the values of respecting the patient and being honest with them. In January, 47 health professionals wrote to the British Psychological Society to express their concern at the way in which the Government has manipulated behavioural science to inculcate lockdown compliance. Other scientists and psychologists have written stinging polemics against the Government’s approach, grounded in the most cutting-edge research on the mind.
There is, however, tragically, now ample evidence of the impact of the campaign of fear that shows the concerns aren’t merely theoretical. The campaign of fear has caused nothing short of a wholly-avoidable physical and mental health crisis. In the first lockdown, over 6,000 people died at home from non-Covid diseases, being too scared to go to hospital. Visits to Accident & Emergency departments collapsed. Over 44,000 fewer people started cancer treatment than in the previous year, with 4.4 million fewer diagnostic tests being carried out: figures that cancer specialists like Professor Karol Sikora have linked to undue fear.
Demand for mental health support has sky-rocketed. An additional 27,000 adults sought support last year and it is now understood that one in six of 5-16 year olds have a mental health condition. The continuing and wholly un-justified face mask mandate in schools is likely to compound this, as well as leading to additional physical ailments. Overall, the Centre for Mental Health has warned that 20% of all adults and 15% of all children will need help dealing with conditions like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder over the coming years.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The illustration accompanying this story is a poster Recovery is using to promote its latest campaign, but said poster has been banned by JC Decaux, the world’s largest poster company, because it supposedly contains “political undertones”. Needless to say, JC Decaux hasn’t refused to run any of the Government’s pro-lockdown propaganda. Guido has the story.
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The BBC news app invited me to watch live “The nation paying respect with a minute’s silence” !!!!
Just give a couple of hours for my blood pressure to return to somewhere like normal!!!
Just turn off the BBC. Cancel your licence. Let the BBC die. It doesn’t deserve support any more.
Trouble is, the rest of the MSM are the same.
Turn them off too. We are the media now.
As a former Telegraph reader I don’t miss any of the MSM.
A minutes silence for the death of freedom
naturally no mention of the other 450,000 or so people who died in the past year.
NATURALLY!!!
Has it settled now? What a shitshow!
I dug out the first email to my MP on the day of the announcement of lockdown 1. Not a million miles from what I believe now.
”
Why is the government’s strategy based on a paper that uses deaths as the metric to minimize rather the Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs)? It is known that the people dying are very much weighted towards very old and with multiple underlying health issues. The NHS uses QALYs normally – this is why we don’t offer multiple, expensive, invasive strategies to the very old.
If you consider the QALYs reduction from the economic effects of the government response, it will outweigh the increase from the saved QALYs. This comes in 2 main ways I can think of
1 – suicides strongly correlate with recessions. The QALY reduction from a suicide is very high because they are young
2 – reduced GDP means a less well funded NHS – which means a reduction in QALYs
The government hasn’t considered these obvious second order effects and appears to be minimizing overall deaths as per the Imperial paper here https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
“
Also QALYs reduction from the population having to endure poor conditions of life – that’s 68 million negative QALYs straight away.
yes, this is the big one. a whole fucking wasted year of shit for a fucking cold
I am writing this with tears still in my eyes having just returned from the funeral of a friend of 37 years. He took his own life because he couldn’t handle the loss of the business he had built up over 40 years. He felt ashamed that he had let his family and employees down, it was no fault of his; it was the government’s and their cursed lockdown.
My deepest sympathies
This government and their ‘scientific’ friends are guilty of domestic terrorism and must be brought to a court of law and judged accordingly. First defendents have to be: Hancock, Whitty, Vallance and Ferguson.
No court will find in our favour. We need to create an entirely new legal system based on truth – ie not paid for by the government* – and public accountability, with, if necessary, enforcement measures to match, of the persuasive rather than physically assault you type. Given your moniker also, I assume BJ would come after the rest. All profits made from the scam returned. As someone once said in a court of law, that’s the hard part. Please let us know what you think, racketeers…
* No closed shop racketeering and, another hard part, no qualifications required. Imagine that!
Thank you Dr Wakeley. As a retired social care professional I consider the harms that politicians have inflicted on our population are incalculable. Those in power need to be removed and a more balanced approach needs to be adopted in dealing with something that is now endemic. Risk is part of everyday life and we need to live with it. Speaking with survivors of Pol Pot one realises that PST continues through the generations…. still suffering three generations down the line in Cambodia. How long will it take our country to recover from this wholly unnecessary policy and strategy?
The divisions created between people, families and friends due to this campaign of fear are irreparable, really irreparable. But hey, what do the Government care, they have created a one party state and will use this for as long as they can to continue this.
”launching a new campaign later this week to bring greater attention to the Government’s deliberate use of fear and the campaign’s disastrous consequences”
Fantastic – and not before time – the public will hopefully, once enlightened, be mightily p*ssed off that they have been played by their own government and ‘public health’ experts
Am amazed the government have been permitted to use these utterly wrong methods to get compliance – are these methods even legal, has this been tested.
You just have to take a walk to see the huge damage that has been done – the outdoor maskers, the swervers, people who still believe in the magic 2m.
I have NOT watched ANY , YES ANY BBC channels in FACT ANY MSM News channels on my TV since April 2020. There are Much better NON propaganda, Not bought & paid for News sources. I get a News MSM news headlines ( just the headlines ) on my iPhone once a day JUST to be aware of the Lies of the Day & thats it. The BBC id for those who wear a mask on their brains