We all remember the harrowing “Look them in the eyes” (LTITE) messaging campaign of early 2021, aimed at levering compliance with Covid restrictions. By means of a series of videos and posters, we were confronted with close-up images of acutely unwell patients in intensive care units, ominous music and a voiceover beseeching us to tell them, nose-to-nose, that we never break the rules. Deploying materials that were heavily infused with behavioural science strategies (‘nudges’), frightening and shaming an already overly scared population into obedience, this advertising initiative was widely considered to be the most controversial – and unethical – of all the public health communications during the Covid event. But who were the key actors responsible for inflicting the LTITE campaign on the populace?
My recently published research has revealed the identities of those culpable for arguably the most emotionally disturbing assault by state-funded public health technocrats upon the British people. By scrutinising the documented outputs of potentially key actors (politicians, civil servants, advisory groups, advertising executives and prominent behavioural scientists), together with over 40 original Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to Government departments, four players centrally involved in the production of LTITE have been identified.
MullenLowe advertising agency
On January 21st 2021, the Government announced the introduction of the new LTITE Covid communications campaign, describing how it represented a shift in tone from previous pandemic messaging towards “encouraging people to take personal responsibility and consider the impact of their behaviour on others”. The same YouGov document also identified MullenLowe as the advertising agency commissioned to create the LTITE videos and posters. The contractual arrangement was a lucrative one, MullenLowe receiving £16 million of taxpayers money in 2020 and a further £40 million for the year August 2021 to August 2022. In keeping with these extraordinarily high payments, Tom Knox (executive partner at MullenLowe and longest serving member of their Covid response team) stated that the pandemic constituted the “biggest U.K. advertising campaign since the Second World War”.
The MullenLowe website provides further details of the advertising agency’s prominent role in the genesis of the LTITE project. Based on its own commissioned research that had suggested 20% of the population underestimated the risk of COVID-19, it strove to “make the risk real for those who were unsure or didn’t believe it” by focusing on the people who had “experienced the very worst of the pandemic”. Following the imposition of the second lockdown in January 2021, MullenLowe’s overarching goal was to get people to stay at home.
And it is clear that the creators of these harrowing videos and posters are immensely proud of their work. Citing HM Government’s astrological computer-modelling predictions as the information source, they claim that “‘Look them in the eyes’ was a critical part of the COVID-19 campaign, which is estimated to have prevented between 1.5-1.8 million infections between April-December 2020, saving between 22,629-27,658 lives”. Clearly, MullenLowe – in its self-congratulatory myopia – failed to consider the extensive fear-related collateral death toll in their appraisal (for example, consequent to people being too scared to attend hospital with other illnesses, and elderly people being abandoned to die prematurely of loneliness and neglect). Furthermore, given that their campaign was not launched until January 2021, the time span of the HM Government’s speculative figures renders the LTITE initiative irrelevant.
Conrad Bird – senior civil servant
Conrad Bird is Director of Campaigns and Marketing at the Cabinet Office, and – by his own admission – was centrally involved in the development of nudge-infused messaging during Covid. In November 2020, prior to the LTITE campaign, Bird celebrates his use of “Embedded evaluators, behavioural insight specialists and decision scientists ensuring constant improvement”. Similarly, in the aftermath of LTITE, he says, “We’ve learned how to deploy behavioural insights from scientists to improve our major campaigns”.
When asked in August 2023 (via a personal email) about his role in the development of the videos and posters used in the LTITE project, Bird replied:
Regarding a specific creative brief, this would have been given orally by my team in response to Government and scientific advice concerning the rise of the Covid Delta [Alpha?] variant. As our advertising agency, MullenLowe will have worked on a number of creative routes in response to the challenge, which would then have been researched in focus groups for their potential effectiveness. The most promising route (Look me in the Eyes) would then have been developed further and signed off by colleagues from Health, the Chief Medical Officer and responsible Ministers.
An August 2023 FOI request confirmed that Bird led the commissioning team responsible for the LTITE campaign.
Cabinet Office Behavioural Science Team
Perhaps surprisingly, my research revealed that the direct behavioural science advice to Conrad Bird and his team came neither from SPI-B (the SAGE subgroup dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of the messaging campaign) nor the much-talked-about Behavioural Insight Team (aka the ‘Nudge Unit’). Instead, a less visible group of nudgers secreted in the Cabinet Office are implicated as the proximal source of guidance for the civil servants involved in LTITE.
There are up to five behavioural scientists located in the Cabinet Office. (Based on the FOI Act, the authorities are permitted to withhold the exact number when it is no more than five.) And the Government confirmed that this small in-house team “provided insight and guidance to Conrad Bird”. Therefore one can conclude that, while the outputs of the SPI-B and the Nudge Unit during Covid often endorsed the use of ethically dubious nudges (see here), and could plausibly have indirectly influenced the various actors involved in the LTITE campaign, the sanctioned source of behavioural science input was the Cabinet Office team.
Matt Hancock – Minister for Health and Social Care
The most predictable finding of all. It will surprise no one that the same Minister who warned youngsters, “Don’t kill your gran“, and who wished to “frighten the pants off” people with a new variant, was also ultimately responsible for sanctioning the LTITE campaign. As confirmed by a 2023 FOI response, Matt Hancock (the then-Health Secretary) was the individual who conducted the ‘sign off’ (as referenced in the Conrad Bird statement above).
While this research initiative has identified four key players involved in the development and dissemination of the harrowing LTITE videos and posters, some questions remain unanswered. For instance, the MullenLowe advertising agency will probably employ its own behavioural scientists and it is unclear how much creative autonomy it was granted – the company did not respond to our requests for information about this issue. However, by identifying the main actors responsible for a contentious campaign that strategically scared and shamed an already frightened population, my research provides pointers as to where we might look to expose those culpable for future nudge-infused state propaganda drives, whether they be under the banner of public health, climate or another purported ‘global crisis’.
Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of the Smile Free campaign opposed to mask mandates.
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Yawn.
Is James Delingpole really a young earth creationist? I know he is nuts but surely not so blatantly nuts?
Not that nuts no. He doesn’t believe in the religion of Darwin and shit happens – a sure sign of mental deficiency.
It is one thing not to believe in evolution but young earth? That requires some pretty dramatic denial of basic science.
My opinion is that he is actually pig-shit thick and has only risen to his level of mediocrity through neoptism.
I’ve never seen convincing explanations of why it should matter to the British people which towns they’ve never heard of are ruled from Kiev and which from Moscow, or why the USA and its lackey states are so desperate for a Ukrainian victory.
You could have said much the same about Poland in 1939 except you substitute Warsaw and Berlin.
It could but it would be a grossly unbalanced response.
Exactly. And we went to war to stop Poland being ruled by an evil dictator in a totalitarian regime, and after 5 years of blood, guts, destruction, death, and bankruptcy we won the war so that Poland could be ruled by an evil dictator in a totalitarian regime.
Are you saying we should not have intervened in 1939?
…because it has nothing to do with Ukraine in reality..that’s why they’ll let every Ukrainian die without a second thought…as they are doing…Ukraine is just the ‘fist’ they use to try to punch Russia…
It’s mainly about the economic rise of the actual majority of the world’s population, and the countries they inhabit…China India Brazil..the Global south… and the fact that the, by far, biggest resource rich country, Russia, is the ‘engine’ that will power them…
This article..which personally I think shows just how mis-guided the US is about Russia, does explain your ‘why’…..but as Ukraine cannot defeat Russia without NATO assistance..I suppose it depends on how crazy the USA are, and how far they are willing to go to achieve their aims…I don’t think they care if Europe is wrecked in the process either…
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/treacherous-path-better-russia
“Ukraine cannot defeat Russia without NATO assistance”?? I think you’ll find that Russia is doing a good job of defeating NATO and killing off the EU. All for having to stop NATO naked expansionism. Oh well, the West wasn’t invited to the 130-country St Petersburg Economic Conference this week. It’s about time the oligarchs controlling the West had some opposition from populists.
I’d be interested in watching that debate.
There are many more able debaters than James to represent his viewpoint. James has a hissy fit when the argument isn’t going his way.
Me too
The one that featured (among others) Hitchens and Kisin was interesting
Yes, let’s have a debate. Let’s find out if Ukraine is a money laundering opportunity for the Biden family and a bio weapons manufacturing facility for western interests and whatever has been going on in that country while we’re at it. The MSM isn’t telling us.
Last sentenced should read, ‘….and whatever else has been going on in that country while we’re at it, that the MSM aren’t telling us’.
I can’t find the edit button!
There is a time out for the Edit button to be available. Move your mouse cursor over the bottom right of the post and it will be found. A gear icon icon line with the comment votes. Yes, kludgy.
The ‘Edit’ sometimes refuses to appear.
Thanks
Either sentence works fine because the MSM certainly hadn’t been telling us what has been going on about anything, anywhere.
True
Correct. Well said.
Cripes, this is some ”accounting error”!
”The Pentagon said Tuesday that it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years — about double early estimates — resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said a detailed review of the accounting error found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. She said final calculations show there was an error of $3.6 billion in the current fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last Sept. 30.”
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2023/06/20/pentagon-error-provides-extra-62-billion-for-ukraine-military-aid/
They have spare debt to spend? It reminds me of the joke about the miser’s kid who was beaten for running home behind the bus to save a shilling, when (his Dad said) he should have run home behind a taxi and saved a fiver.
Well, your own ad hominem debating style will hardly advance the cause of truth. I would invite you to address the issues raised in the Redacted video I posted yesterday: https://youtu.be/myRW5CV6Rck
Ah, the old “thwarted the peace deal” stuff again. I dealt with some of that previously (although I don’t recall where — possibly in the comments to an article).
That’s a telling remark. Because you have somehow ‘dealt with’ the peace deal issue somewhere (but you can’t remember where) you write any further discussion off. Not worthy of The Daily Sceptic. This casual dismissal closely parallels your ad hominem style.
Well, actually, any movement towards peace talks seems to be thwarted. Different sides may not agree on the actual starting place but if peace is to be sought, there must be a start. From there, it is a case of exploring the possibilities. Now it seems that no one wants to listen to anyone else and that everything must be exactly as it was in January 2022. That is not realistic.
https://bnn.network/world/austria/ogb-cancels-controversial-vienna-peace-summit-for-ukraine-amid-outrage-and-concerns/
The Biden family can’t afford peace….
Oh well, that is OK if YOU have dealt with it. I bow to your omniscience.
Bankrolling Ukraine and shipping more and more increasingly sophisticated weaponry holding out the promise that they could win isn’t exactly encouraging negotiation. Deal with that.
The odd thing about James’s contribution to the Ukraine discussion was when, finally stung into a response, he questioned whether Toby would want his sons going to fight in Ukraine…. in the event Toby said he’d like them to go there on humanitarian missions.
Still, the point was, that James had one or two arguments to deploy but it took a lot of jabbing by Toby to bring them out.
Good luck with the debate, as James’s infamous appearance on This Week demonstrated, he doesn’t really do rational debate, but remains hugely entertaining among friends.
L Rons Hubbard is a Uketopian apologist – what is there to debate?
US has been staging coups in the Uketopia since 2004. It murdered 15000 Russians in the east in 2014. It broke the Minsk accords. It has 30 biolabs. It money launders millions via the Uketopia. It has weapons pointed across its Uketopian satellite at Russia. It is using its 51rst state to fight a war against Russia and kill innocents in the process.
Are the Russians blameless? Probably not.
But let’s flip it and have the Russians doing the above in say Mexico. If that happened the criminal US would bomb the shit out of Mexico top to bottom, left to right, all to protect ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ ie stolen elections, a totalitarian state and scamdemics.
What L Rons and others can’t understand is that the US is a criminal enterprise and a failed tottering diseased empire. The US, not Russia, is the problem.
Well said.
Debate by all means but you will only really get to waggle your ego about as both are fairly intractable positions that I doubt very much anyone will shift from.
I would say that the lack of any move towards a peace deal is highly telling though. In years gone past, pursuing the path of peace was a civilised approach to limiting conflict. Now it seems that a ‘civilised’ approach to dealing with conflict is to do the exact opposite. To ramp it up and send in increasingly heavy weaponry and risk the use of nuclear weapons. I don’t trust Zelensky. He’s a failed comedian and an actor. The way he pops up – always dressed in olive green as if he personally is on the front line – and speaks to big stages and gatherings and sports events and the way that actors and failed politicians make their way to do homage to him speaks of theatre. It feels wrong and false. Also, I’m sick of seeing the Ukrainian flag flying from church steeples and council offices.
I don’t doubt there are many ordinary Ukrainians caught up in the lies and subterfuge of their own government and who are now dying on battlefields in their hundreds and thousands. Just as happens in most wars. Who benefits? The arms industry, private contractors, security consultants, bankers and all the others who feed on such conflicts. I’m no Putin apologist, he is no saint and is guilty of many crimes, but it wasn’t him pushing NATO membership beyond the boundaries of an agreed treaty nor was it him shelling ethnic Russians in the Donbas region or staging a coup against a democratically elected President.
Christ, what a disgrace this puppet PM is!
‘I’m proud that today we’re announcing a multi year commitment to support Ukraine’s economy – over 3 years we will provide loan guarantees worth $3 billion.’
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks at the Ukraine Recovery Conference as he pledges £2.35 billion in loan guarantees.”
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1671437495417049089
He seems to have missed the fact that Russia is already rebuilding the bits of Ukraine that are now Russian. They appear to be doing a great job in Mariupol.
Why is Britain still in NATO? Debate.
Because vassal states do not secede without bloodshed.
It’s no longer possible to have a useful debate simply about the rights and wrongs of the Ukraine conflict, which has brought into focus far wider questions … the recent history of NATO and the West in the Middle East, Libya, et al … EU empire-building … the role of the Military Industrial Complex … American decay and the corruption of Western democracy … and many more. It’s difficult to imagine Mr. Rons’ abrasive style would add much to our collective understanding.
…I agree…the expansion of NATO, and the encircling of both Russia and China with the bases of their self-proclaimed enemy..the USA…cannot be ignored in a reasoned debate..but is always ignored….
James’s intolerance and lack of civility is concerning. He seems to leap to a conclusion just for the hell of it then lazily doubles down on it when questioned. This came up for me in connection with his claimed Christianity where he seems to want to redefine even basic Christian doctrine to suit his own whims. When I politely pointed this out on his Telegram channel he simply told me to eff off then got angry when I congratulated him on his charm! I’ve since heard of others having similar responses on different topics.
Think you should get the boys from UK Column involved together with Vanessa Beeley and David Clues. Should make for an interesting conversation. Might even make you think again Mr Rons.
Oh and Peter Ford now there’s a man that knows exactly what’s happening.
Give it a rest Ian.
It would be pointless debating with James Dellingpole as he is far too eccentric and a religious fanatic to have any cogent views on an important subject like Ukraine.
James Delingpole, like many Conspiracy Theorists, is far too thin skinned.
I started following him on Telegram and I made one polite comment about agreeing with him that Covid was a scam BUT showing that viruses exist and he blocked me.
I love a good conspiracy.
I supported David Icke for 20 years, bought most of his books, paid a monthly subscription to him, watched him live at Wembley for 10 hours and donated money to his TV project The Peoples Voice.
For about 6 months, I politely debated with people on his forum about Covid being a scam and that the extreme view that viruses do not exist was harming the sceptics fight against the scam.
And one of his administrators, Grumpy Owl, blocked me.
Years ago having been “moderated” by The Guardian for my “below the line” sceptical comments I was one of the first to follow OffGuardian. Two years ago I politely agreed with them that Covid was a scam but SARS-CoV-2, like other viruses, does indeed exist.
One of their administrators, Sophie2, blocked me.
It seems that if you do not agree 100% with these “Conspiracy Theorists” on every subject then they ban you from any sort of debate.
If they were so convinced of their positions you would have thought they would welcome a healthy debate.
It seems they don’t believe in “free speech”.
There are many other people to debate without resorting to those with extreme views just because they have a large following of like minded people who also hold fringe views.
James refuses to debate the Ukraine war because his point is that truth does not work against a narrative. Climate change. Covid. The creators of the narrative are activists who are not interested in the truth, while public opinion simply assumes that all those people can’t be wrong.
And if ever there was a narrative, it is the Ukraine. Look who’s back. Yes it’s the whole gang who brought you the Iraq war and the Beeb annd the Brexit blockers too. The crisis came from nowhere and overnight factories started churning out Ukrainian flags and the name Kiev was declared incorrect. The Blob is at work, and there is no point debating the Blob.
“Never argue with a fool in public lest the public not know which is which.” Unattributed.
I’ll stick to the professional opinions of Major Scott Ritter and Colonel Douglas MacArthur thank you. Both American patriots through and through, but with a deep knowledge of history and a critical appraisal of a wide range of news sources.
*Macgregor