• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Matt Hancock’s Plan to “Deploy the New Variant” to “Frighten the Pants off Everyone”

by Nick Dixon
5 March 2023 11:00 AM

The latest of the Telegraph’s ‘Lockdown Files’ has arrived, and impressively it is even more damning than the previous instalments. Here’s an excerpt:

Throughout the course of the pandemic, officials and ministers wrestled with how to ensure the public complied with ever-changing lockdown restrictions. One weapon in their arsenal was fear. 

“We frighten the pants off everyone,” Matt Hancock suggested during one WhatsApp message with his media adviser. 

The then Health Secretary was not alone in his desire to scare the public into compliance. The WhatsApp messages seen by the Telegraph show how several members of Mr. Hancock’s team engaged in a kind of ‘Project Fear’ in which they spoke of how to utilise “fear and guilt” to make people obey lockdown.

As with the other revelations, it is shocking yet not surprising. We knew they were doing this, but there’s something truly grotesque about seeing the contempt they had for people laid bare. The absolute disregard for freedom, and worse, the revelling in this exercise of power by the likes of Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, who found forcing travellers to quarantine in shoebox hotel rooms “hilarious”.

It is a toss up between Hancock and Case for the title of the Lockdown Files’ Greatest Villain. I was considering awarding it to the wretched Case until this latest round of files dropped, and Hancock went full Dr. Evil with his question: “When do we deploy the new variant” [sic].

Of course we shouldn’t let the unintentional comedy of Hancock’s messages (one has him text shouting “SOMEONE INSTALLED A CAMERA IN MY OFFICE WITHOUT TELLING ME!”) distract from how appalling his actions were.

How far Boris should be excused is another question. Throughout the Lockdown Files he shows his instinct for freedom, but lacks the courage to convert that into policy. This latest episode is no different, as the Telegraph reveals:

Boris Johnson, then the Prime Minister, had promised that families would be reunited at Christmas – the first since the pandemic struck in early 2020. He said foregoing long-awaited reunions “would be inhuman and against the instincts of many people in this country”.

But behind the scenes, his ministers and officials were increasingly aware that vast swathes of the public faced a grave disappointment and that the Johnson administration would take the blame for their frustration. 

The solution in December was “to frighten the pants off everyone” with a declaration of a new strain of COVID-19, known as the Alpha or Kent variant.

In a conversation between Mr Hancock and Mr Poole on Dec 13th, the pair discussed how to survive the coming backlash and storm. On the day, there were 18,409 cases of Covid recorded and 410 deaths. Five days later, on Dec 18th, Mr. Johnson would scrap his planned five-day Christmas amnesty in an about turn. 

Every time I think I have hit peak anger with this ongoing saga, the messages reveal a new low.

The bizarre power given to chancers “Slackie and Lee” (James Slack and Lee Cain in the Downing St comms team) to dictate policy; Simon Case’s nauseating glee at imposing petty restrictions, and his characterisation of the desire to retain basic privacy around one’s contact details as “pure Conservative ideology”; Boris’s claim that another lockdown would be the “height of absurdity”, before immediately implementing it – I could go on.

But Hancock’s brazen fear tactics, apparently divorced from any kind of scientific evidence, deployed, to use his word, with borderline psychopathic disregard for the impact they would have on people, is the worst finding yet in this already incredibly sordid tale.

Tags: COVID-19Fear-mongeringLockdown FilesLockdownsMatt HancockNudge Unit

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Why Has China Stopped Selling Drones to Russia and Started Selling them to Ukraine?

Next Post

Chris Rock Says Asking What an Unborn Baby’s Skin Colour Is Likely to Be is Not Racist

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

65 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

The Sceptic EP.37: David Frost on Starmer’s EU Surrender, James Price on Broken Britain and David Shipley on Lucy Connolly’s Failed Appeal

by Richard Eldred
23 May 2025
7

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

News Round-Up

28 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

How to Defeat the Westminster ‘Blob’

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

GB News’s ‘Anti-woke’ Comedy Show Faces Axe After Thousands of Complaints

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

What is ‘The Movement Forward’?

28 May 2025
by Charlotte Gill

Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

32

Tory MPs to Boris Johnson: Thanks, But no Thanks

22

News Round-Up

17

GB News’s ‘Anti-woke’ Comedy Show Faces Axe After Thousands of Complaints

33

What is ‘The Movement Forward’?

12

The Net Zero Agenda’s Continued Collapse Into Chaos

28 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Alasdair MacIntyre 1929-2025

27 May 2025
by James Alexander

Lies, Damned Lies and Casualty Numbers in Ancient History

26 May 2025
by Guy de la Bédoyère

Lord Frost: “The Boriswave Was a Catastrophic Error”

26 May 2025
by Laurie Wastell

The Legal Case Against the AfD Has Collapsed

25 May 2025
by Eugyppius

POSTS BY DATE

March 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Feb   Apr »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

March 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Feb   Apr »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

News Round-Up

28 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

How to Defeat the Westminster ‘Blob’

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

GB News’s ‘Anti-woke’ Comedy Show Faces Axe After Thousands of Complaints

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

What is ‘The Movement Forward’?

28 May 2025
by Charlotte Gill

Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

32

Tory MPs to Boris Johnson: Thanks, But no Thanks

22

News Round-Up

17

GB News’s ‘Anti-woke’ Comedy Show Faces Axe After Thousands of Complaints

33

What is ‘The Movement Forward’?

12

The Net Zero Agenda’s Continued Collapse Into Chaos

28 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Alasdair MacIntyre 1929-2025

27 May 2025
by James Alexander

Lies, Damned Lies and Casualty Numbers in Ancient History

26 May 2025
by Guy de la Bédoyère

Lord Frost: “The Boriswave Was a Catastrophic Error”

26 May 2025
by Laurie Wastell

The Legal Case Against the AfD Has Collapsed

25 May 2025
by Eugyppius

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences