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A Response to Lord Hannan on Public Support for Lockdowns

by Noah Carl
12 January 2023 11:00 AM

On December 31st, Lord Hannan revealed in his Telegraph column that he’s no longer “a rational optimist of the Norberg-Ridley-Pinker school”. Instead, he’s swiftly becoming a “rational pessimist”. One of the reasons for this change of heart, he explains, is the British public’s enthusiastic embrace of lockdown. Hannan writes:

When, in January 2020, I heard that the Chinese authorities were closing and quarantining cities, I thanked my lucky stars that I lived in a nation where such things were unthinkable. The months that followed taught me some hard truths. It became clear that many of my countrymen couldn’t give two hoots about liberty, either in the abstract or in practice. A horrifying survey in July 2021 showed that, with or without a virus, 26% of people wanted nightclubs closed, 35% wanted travellers quarantined and 40% wanted mandatory facemasks.

Hannan’s point – that “many of his countrymen couldn’t give two hoots about liberty” – is not without merit. A large percentage of Brits did support lockdown, and polls show that a large percentage also favour higher taxes and nationalisation of industry.

But when it comes to the British public’s support for lockdown, there’s one major caveat that needs to be mentioned: they massively overestimated the risks of Covid. So to some extent, it’s not surprising they favoured lockdown.

In April of 2020, Ipsos MORI asked Brits what are the chances of needing hospital treatment if you catch Covid. The median answer was 30%, whereas the correct answer is closer to 3%. So respondents overestimated the risk of hospitalisation by a factor of 10.

Similar findings have been reported in many other polls and surveys. As George Davey Smith and David Spiegelhalter noted in May of 2020, “levels of personal fear” are “strikingly mismatched to objective risk of death”. And Spiegelhalter ought to know – he was formerly the Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge.

Why did people overestimate the risks of Covid?

Part of the explanation is that they are bad at estimating quantities in general; they tend to ‘rescale’ small percentages upwards toward 50. But another part of the explanation, I would argue, is that politicians intentionally exaggerated the risks in order to increase compliance with lockdown.

The use of fear tactics during the pandemic has been documented extensively by Laura Dodsworth in her book A State of Fear. As one scientist told her, “The Government was very worried about compliance… There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance, and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear.”

In other words: the public embraced lockdown so enthusiastically, at least in part, because they’d been led to believe that Covid was more dangerous than it really was. So from their point of view, infringing civil liberties to protect people from Covid seemed justified.

Brits clearly aren’t the intrepid freedom-lovers of libertarian fantasy. With that said, lockdown wasn’t a ‘fair test’ of their commitment to liberty.

Tags: Dan HannanLockdownPublic perceptions

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37 Comments
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Mr10Percent
Mr10Percent
2 years ago

A combination of Propaganda from the MSM, and well-crafted “opinion polls” purposely nudge the sheep to nod at anything or at best, they hate the interruption to their grazing.

I’m pretty sure if the question was asked differently, a 180 degree opinion could be obtained.

I’m also pretty sure too that many are too frightened to speak up against the narrative and become the exception (tin foil hatter) rather than the silent but knowing majority.

114
0
AJPotts
AJPotts
2 years ago

It’s reasonable to offer the deliberate and cynical fearmongering of government as a partial excuse for public support for lockdown. The propaganda was incessant and it’s unsurprising that it had an effect.

Hannan was, however, largely justified in his disappointment that the British people failed an important test and were beguiled by demagogues. The case for lockdown was always extremely week. Even if they were to be as effective as their proponents claimed, a doubtful proposition from the start, their harms and costs were disproportionately high compared to these potential benefits.

Our national culture proved not to be founded on a spirit of self-reliance, scepticism, stoicism, and pragmatic reasonableness. We proved to be weak and credulous. To avoid future similar disasters we need to attack the culture of big government and nanny statism in all its manifestations at every opportunity.

146
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  AJPotts

Quite right. Some members of the herd did not succumb and they were subject to the same propaganda and fearmongering, so it’s about character, autonomy and intelligent thought which clearly so many lack.

95
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
2 years ago
Reply to  AJPotts

Would anybody like to hazard a guess as to the response to all the propaganda in the absence of social media?

2
0
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago

It certainly revealed how vulnerable we are to grossly over reactive bureaucrats and politicians, even to emerging dictators and so on.

59
0
JayBee
JayBee
2 years ago

I am with Hannan.
And if lockdowns weren’t a fair test, then masks surely were. Brits failed that one the most spectacular in the whole world, as they were the only ones who could have self-exempted themselves and didn’t do so.
As I’ve said before: The German speaking peoples compliance and scapegoating was to be fully expected and is the most despicable, the Latin world’s lack of resistance was most surprising, and Brits and Americans pu**yfication was the most disappointing.

96
0
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

I’m not sure that we were the only ones that could self-exempt (which I did), but there was an awful lot of deliberate, shall we say “misinformation” about our legal rights, so as to encourage compliance! It was actually via some YT entry that I discovered the relative Gov site that published all the graphics and so on, for producing exempt badges etc. The Gov did not advertise it’s existence, but could have used it as defence if need be.

They avoided explaining the legality of it all, so as to encourage the general public to believe in the notion that exemption had to be granted by a third party, like a licence, but it never was.

57
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RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

The German speaking peoples compliance and scapegoating was to be fully expected and is the most despicable,

No. What’s most despicable is this routine attempt to blame the victims for the damage which was inflicted on them because they’re just – as always – the wrong people. The architects of lockdown etc sat in the USA, China and at the UN. They are to blame for it. You also conveniently (such a strange coincidence!) forget to mention that throughout lockdown in Germany, there was a large civil resistance movement (the so-called Querdenker) which was mercilessly vilified as far right extremists by the US-entralled governing establishment, and which kept organizing large demonstrations where extreme police violence against peaceful protestors, often OAPs, routinely occurred.

38
-1
JayBee
JayBee
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

I know, I’ve also been one of them.
Still to me, my fellow countrymens silence, collaboration, complicity, determination and zeal to discriminate and other the dissidents are the most despicable, because of their prior more recent similar history, and because of all this education and all those vows of ‘never again’ from 1945 to 2020, which were not just forgotten at the very first test, but pursued with the same verve as during the 12 brown years or in the GDR.

30
-1
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

The never again vows came from the same set of Politparasiten[*] who architected the German version of this Sino-American policy disaster. The antifascists (or the people who keep harping on about how antifascist and against-the-right they are) did this. And the majority of little people did what they always do when the state goes rogue: Keep their heads down and hope that the storm will weather somehow.

[*] combining the German nouns for politican and parasite.

13
-1
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

My first thought upon hearing about the face masks was, “You want me to do WHAAAAT?! Well, I certainly ain’t doing that, it’s patently absurd, and out of interest – just what exactly do the “rules” say, anyway?!”

Bingo

One of the most disturbing things to me about this whole sorry, evil affair is how easily so many people apparently enjoyed and even volunteered to half-suffocate themselves.

Feeling as if I was being surrounded by masochists doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Last edited 2 years ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
42
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MikeAustin
MikeAustin
2 years ago

But when it comes to the British public’s support for lockdown, there’s one major caveat that needs to be mentioned: they massively overestimated the risks of Covid.

I take issue with the word ‘over-estimated’. Blind acceptance without any scrutiny or research has nothing to do with estimation.

74
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
2 years ago
Reply to  MikeAustin

Hear hear!

And when I pointed out that the numbers of people dying was really completely normal for nothing more than a bad flu season, the sheep STILL didn’t want to know!

34
0
davelowe
davelowe
2 years ago

The elephant in the room is the assumed implicit permission that governments can use nefarious means to influence the population without the public realising it is happening. This in my view is clearly immoral and ought to be illegal. Various laws exist in many Western nations to prevent governments using weapons against their own people, e.g. CIA cannot spy on US citizens. Laws exist to prevent subliminal messaging in advertisements and broadcasts. I think we need a similar law to prevent the dissemination of propaganda by a government against its own people.

75
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
2 years ago
Reply to  davelowe

“CIA cannot spy on US citizens.”

But they do it anyway, and can’t be challenegd legally because “national security” trumps everything. And here, “emergency powers,” even without strong legal force, seems to make even the judiciary compliant and coercive.

34
0
BurlingtonBertie
BurlingtonBertie
2 years ago
Reply to  davelowe

The government have broken the Geneva Convention & used psychological methods of torture on the population to ensure the compliance they demanded. They don’t give a damn about us, so long as the orders issued are followed.

29
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
2 years ago
Reply to  davelowe

Who makes the laws, Dave?

7
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago
Reply to  davelowe

Not a hope. They are moving in the opposite direction ….. more surveillance, more control.

You will only avoid the propaganda by ignoring “official” sources of information, particularly the likes of the BBC.

15
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago

No excuses. Just like no excuses for those who inflicted the nightmare on us mitigated by ‘didn’t understand, didn’t know at the time’.

So the inability to notice the absence of mass sickness everywhere which would have crippled normal life and been blatantly apparent played no part?

Hannan is right. We have bred a population of infantile, mindless blobs minus backbones but full of emotions and feelings. Exhibit A: Harry of Wales.

88
0
barrososBuboes
barrososBuboes
2 years ago

The polls are completely untrustworthy.
Obviously as the article states the government spent a billion pounds on fear propaganda.
Under normal circumstances few in their right minds would demand any lockdown and even fewer when made aware of all the damage that they do. (For example if the government advertising campaign was reversed).

34
0
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
2 years ago

I agree with Hannan in essence but what I noticed was a difference between people’s ‘public’ acceptance of lockdown propaganda and their actual interpretation/action. While some, perhaps most, were entirely suckered in and there was no small amount of neighbour-snitching (especially in these parts – shame on them), some were more flexible, especially after Dom’s little jaunt to Barnard Castle. That really riled a lot of people and should not be underestimated. The most flexible interpretation I saw was the chap signed off with covid coming into work to drop his sick note off & chat to his buddies! Another was a relative’s passing: very few at the sad, socially distanced/videoed funeral, but plenty at the wake after. Adaptations to take care of children also featured – and quite rightly so. These little insurrections under the radar do at least provide a small degree of comfort that not all is lost (yet).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQsOzH2FAXU

25
-1
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  WyrdWoman

Something which also deserves to be mentioned here: At some point in time during the first lockdown, when everything was still strengstens verboten (IIRC end of May, when the weather started to become tolerable) a pub in Caversham (the Fox and Hound) opened to offer a beer for takeaway service (by that time still a legal loophole, later outlawed). I went by that pub every Saturday on the way back from my weekly grocery shopping and had two pints on the way home — together with all the other people who sat – in form of a large open-air pub – on the meadow on the other side of the road. I still cherish that memory.

24
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

A friend and I went out for a walk and stopped at the Station Cafe (nicely obscured from the road) for a takeaway Egg and Bacon Bap and coffee …… and found around 20 other people congregated on the platform, doing likewise, some sitting on the benches, others just standing around chatting. There was far more dissent (outside the cities) than the authorities realised.

11
0
stewart
stewart
2 years ago

Lockdowns themselves caused the fear. They had a self fulfilling quality about them. If they are telling us to stay at home, it must be dangerous.

Consider what would have happened instead if people had been advised to stay home but allowed to decide for themselves.

Perhaps quite a few would have scurried away into their homes in fear. But many would not have. And as the “brave” carried on with their lives, the fearful would.have seen the real measure of risk, would have developed severe FOMO and emerged from hiding.

I’m growing frustrated by the rationalisation of the public’s behaviour. Make no mistake, its all about force and coercion. In the absence of compulsion there is no lockdown, no masks and far fewer jabs.

49
0
ELH
ELH
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Some people loved the drama and theatre of it all especially when mask wearing became a thing. They couldn’t wait to signal to the outside world what good compliant people they were.

I never saw the film “Contagion” but remember Matt Hancock did and mentioned it on tv as knowing what needed to be done because he had seen it on film. How many others believed that too?

2
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago

I fail to see the point of this article. Hannan has hardly been the most vocal of those with a national platform in condemning every aspect of the Scamdemic.

Let’s ignore Hannan as he has ignored the people of this country and leave him to his comfortable retirement on his taxpayer funded EU pension.

24
-4
Bellacovidonia
Bellacovidonia
2 years ago

Every academic, policy type and journalist who sucks at the teat of government, including Spiegelhalter and self appointed numbers guru Tim Harford failed to point these issues out. Their income and prestige depended on it. They hid behind the fact that they were not life scientists for their wilful blindness to statistical hoodwinking which took place on a daily basis. As a critical behavioural researcher I saw the academy adopt this Lysenko-like self censoring at first hand.it’s a disgrace. We need as a matter of urgency a free-thinking online academy led by people with credentials and courage which is admittedly in short supply.

31
0
JayBee
JayBee
2 years ago

A very good one on freedom and generations. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/01/no_author/the-cycle-of-freedom/

Why our elites are curtailing freedom and failing so big at the moment:
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=29076

8
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

I read the article at the second link, “Chaos and Control”. Very good, thx

5
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

The first is not really good because that’s just from another US neoliberal who has no clue about the history of anything except the USA and couldn’t care less about it.

The original Athenian democracy (mentioned in passing as example of the claim) did not come to an end because stupid people (who think states are good for something) voted to give themselves free stuff but because Athens lost the Peloponnesian war against Sparta. This happened mostly because Athens sent a huge (for the standards of the time) military expedition to Sicily which got routed with the loss of all men and ships. The victorious Spartans then installed an oligarchy (the 30).

NB: This is a gross oversimplification, but a lot more accurate than the nonsense claim in the linked-to text.

4
0
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago

Fool me once, shame on you….

11
0
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
2 years ago

The public over estimated the risks because that was the message they were given, night after night. All supported by the propaganda unit in Number Ten (aka nudge unit, established by Messrs Cameron and Clegg).

15
0
mikkip
mikkip
2 years ago

Hannan is right to be pessimistic about human progress. Our ‘democratic’ government (currently led by an appointed WEF stooge) did the bidding of big business and supranational organizations funded by billionaires and even the CCP. All our institutions (civil service, media, academia, education) are corrupted by neo-marxist ideology and work in lockstep with the state to propagandize, gaslight and generally push a single agenda. That agenda is authoritarian, totalitarian and collectivist. In other words, unless you expect everyone to be a free thinking hero then there’s nothing to be optimistic about. You won’t vote your way out of this — it’s a stitch up.

8
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago

Most people are sheep; a few are goats.

And Hannan was surprised to find this out? Obviously not as clever as he thinks he is.

6
0
Sontol
Sontol
2 years ago

The illiberal Covid measures were not imposed top down in the UK, the government was in complete lockstep with an eagerly compliant general population, media etc.

Since Charles Darwin first hacked away at the metaphysical foundations of organised Christianity, and by extension spiritually / the existence of an eternal soul in general, there has been an ever increasing widespread fear of death.

That coupled with a concomitant moral inversion from spirituality’s self sacrifice and social compassion to Darwinian ultra selfish and brutal ‘survival of the fittest’ fully explains a willingness to enforce pretty much any level of restrictive measures on others if they are thought to safeguard the individual’s physical health and longevity – see also smoking bans, sugar tax, the whole Green / Net Zero agenda etc.

The great irony is that all fundamentally immoral ideologies ultimately harm the physical – never mind spiritual – well-being of those who buy into them.

As lockdown proponents now languishing in ambulances for hours on end should realise (and I say that with no sense of joy or vindication, these are ideological and practical challenges rather than personalised criticisms).

Last edited 2 years ago by Sontol
2
0
Smudger
Smudger
2 years ago

The Brits demonstrated their commitment to liberty in 2016 but the establishment were hellbent on overturning the will of the people!
With regards to Covid debacle the British people were led up the garden by the Tory Government’s cowardice, irresponsibility and lies ably assisted by their MSM shills.

Last edited 2 years ago by Smudger
2
0
SomersetHoops
SomersetHoops
2 years ago

Polls are not necessarily an accurate measure of public opinion. I’ve only infrequently been asked to add my opinions to a poll and each time I’ve refused and would think a large proportion of the public would do the same. The time will come for the overdue election and I encourage more of the silent majority to resist their hate of politics and politicians and take part. Vote for what you believe in, even if you think it has no chance of success. Its the only way we will remove from power the disgracefull dishonourable group that most of our current politicians are.

1
0

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