To lockdown sceptics’ great chagrin, recent polls have found that the majority of Brits are still very much pro-lockdown. In a YouGov poll taken in early March, only 19% of respondents said the government’s handling of pandemic was “too strict”, and a remarkable 37% said it was “not strict enough”.
Likewise, when UnHerd asked Brits whether “in retrospect, lockdown was a mistake”, they found there wasn’t a single constituency in the country where a majority agreed. Overall agreement was 27% – which is barely more encouraging than YouGov’s finding.
Now, you can always quibble with polls – the figures might be off by five or ten percentage points. But this clearly isn’t enough to turn 27% into a majority. So what explains Brits’ continued support for a policy that imposed such huge costs while conferring such small benefits (if any)?
Are many of us suffering from Stockholm syndrome? (although it should really be called ‘Wuhan syndrome’). Here are the factors I think are involved.
First: as veteran-lockdown sceptic Lord Hannan has noted with regret, “many of my countrymen couldn’t give two hoots about liberty”. Like the citizens of most Western countries, Brits have long favoured higher taxes and nationalisation of industry. So their support for lockdown isn’t exactly a major anomaly that needs to be explained.
Second: as I noted in my reply to Lord Hannan, Brits massively overestimated the risks of Covid, particularly the risks to the young. This owes partly to general biases in the estimation of small quantities. But it also stems from the intentional use of fear tactics whose very aim was to increase compliance with lockdown.
Third: the theoretical case for ‘flattening the curve’ was strong. If infections rise too high, hospitals will become overwhelmed, leading to huge numbers of deaths; a temporary lockdown can prevent this from happening. The argument is flawed, of course – not least because it ignores the ‘costs’ side of the equation. But it seems quite compelling.
Fourth: case numbers did start falling around the time of each lockdown in 2020. Yet as the statistician Simon Wood has shown, infections were already in decline before the lockdown was called – in all three cases. This can be seen in the chart below, which shows the timing of lockdowns in relation to five reconstructions of infection numbers.
Fifth: while the supposed benefits of lockdown were obvious and immediate, the costs were largely delayed. As a result, members of the public are more likely to credit lockdown for its ‘successes’ than they are to blame lockdown for its failures – including debt, inflation and plunging test scores.
Sixth: for months, credentialed scientists appeared before the television cameras and informed the public that lockdown was the right choice – that the Government really was ‘following the science’. Meanwhile, dissenting scientists (like those who signed the Great Barrington Declaration) were consistently marginalised.
This last point is particularly important, as surveys show that scientists are among the most trusted professionals in the country. Through a combination of groupthink, deplatforming and biased media coverage, the public became convinced that there was such a thing as ‘the science’ and that it supported lockdown.
Three years later, they haven’t changed their minds.
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Sad.
Well almost nobody is wearing masks now, nor are they staying at home, despite “Covid cases” being as high as ever on and off. Probably many still believe the “vaccines” saved them but I don’t think people are as keen on lockdowns as the poll responses suggest.
I also think many would say they were a mistake in retrospect but “we didn’t know back then”.
And people know the “vaccines” were not as effective as advertised.
But nobody likes to admit they have been had.
Rona was a religious cult. Most people imo are really stupid and no matter how much money they make or how important they think they are, they are not critical thinkers. They follow the Religion of $cience. They have no idea about death rates, IFRs, fake tests, the avg age of death, midazolam-ventilator deaths, MCCD changes, criminal Pharma, or what is in the quackcines. None of them asked what the magic elixir contained. None of them asked how LDs in March, when said virus was present in the preceding Fall would do f* all except destroy and kill.
If the $cience says LDs were good, that is the answer. Who is some blogger in his underwear to say nay to the $cience ? (so the cult’s acolytes question).
People bought into the $cientism and it is unlikely they will admit they were morons. This is probably why not a single election even mentions this Fascism. That is how dumb we are collectively.
I think for a lot of people they simply struggled with the idea that governments, media and every other authority could lie to them so egregiously, so they chose to pretend to others and to themselves that they believed it. But their behaviour, especially now, says they didn’t really. Obviously there are still scared people out there, but IMO not many. I have just come back from hypochondriac Italy and there was close to zero sign that covid had ever been a thing there.
I have to admit this came as a surpsie to me when it started. OTOH, this was so glaringly obvious from the start, that it instead shattered the remains of my generally somehow centre-left world view very thoroughly.
Me too
Fortunately I have never been afflicted with a centre-left world view. Anyway I am glad you are now over it.
I feel sure most of my acquaintances would mask up and lock down immediately if Sunak gave the word, and would enthusiastically re-join their vigilante enforcement gangs, and come up with tortuous waffle to “logically” justify their behaviour. Depressing, especially if this were true nationally..
I’m honestly not sure but my guess is that people in general are done with covid and have moved on. I think they would need to invent something scarier.
That might be true. However, that’s what at Emily Oster and Friends would like to be true. And it will become if we don’t keep the narrative focused on finding out how The Lockdown and all its trappings and vaxxes came about.
I don’t so much care how they came about, more that people need to realise it was just like the flu about which nothing much can be done, and that “saving lives” at all costs is wrong and futile. A more grown-up, stoical attitude, in short.
Perhaps Climate Change will make a comeback as something scarier. Freefalling walruses have jumped the shark.
The climate change scam is certainly very dangerous and has convinced a lot of people, though I would hope that once it really starts to hit people where it hurts, they will discover they don’t care as much as they say they did about “saving the planet”. Also it’s less viscerally frightening, more abstract and distant, than a “deadly disease”.
Whats not to like, paid to sit at home. The government psyops units did their job, and most people are unthinking morons.
Thats three reasons I can think of. How do you think the government can push the climate change ponzi scheme as well.
Too right! As the maxim goes, “If you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s vote.”
I think this relates to Ritchy Rich’s statement about maths today.
The general public is just pig-ignorant when it comes to maths and other STEM subjects. While I understand what a fatality rate of 0.03% means and draw the appropriate inference, I’m not sure most people can or do.
The Global Warming/Net Zero scam is another example of the public’s invincible ignorance being exploited by a political class.
Looking on the bright side, it might open the market for certain groups of teachers. The snag is that they’ll be able to do the sums about their salaries, pension funds and so on!
I have a covid cultist friend who’s a professional statistician with an MBA. You’d think he’d be up for analysing the stats but it’s like invasion of the body snatchers, once they’ve been taken over there’s no going back.
I can quite believe that the majority *were* pro-lockdown when the world was in the midst of the worst and most intensive scamdemic/PsyOp in human history. This is entirely understandable as their brains would have been successfully washed with the elaborate fear porn and propaganda, their thinking too addled by the incessant lies they were bombarded with from all angles, MSM, politicians and other authority figures including trusted doctors, for example. However, with the benefit of hindsight and all the data we’ve accrued and knowledge we’ve gathered through lived experiences, I call absolute BS that it is still the case that the majority of the public support lockdowns. So I do think it’s important to make the distinction between past and present tense here. Are people still as terrified of a virus now as they were in November 2020? Highly unlikely. Michael Senger has done an excellent article relating to this topic;
”Across the western world, governments used propaganda on their own citizens for the specific purpose of ratcheting up fear of the coronavirus and increasing compliance with lockdown measures. State scientists in the United Kingdom later admitted they’d used fear to change minds in a series of interviews with author Laura Dodsworth: “Using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism.” “The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment.” “Psychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic.”
As one Member of Parliament put it:
Likewise, a report later released by the Canadian Armed Forces revealed that military leaders saw COVID as a unique opportunity to test propaganda techniques on the public, “shaping” and “exploiting” information to bolster government messages about the virus.
As a result of these domestic propaganda campaigns, across the western world, we were all treated to such delightful slogans as “just stay home,” “two weeks to slow the spread,” “follow the science,” and “we’re all in this together”—each of course, in truly Orwellian fashion, being a boldfaced lie.”
https://michaelpsenger.substack.com/p/devils-advocate-responding-to-lockdown
“I call absolute BS that it is still the case that the majority of the public support lockdowns.”
Totally agree
I wondered why too and would suggest this …
I reckon 40% of the population is either ignorant of the facts or enjoys the benefits of lockdown.
The majority of under 35’s get their info from Big Tech or MSM. Theyve never lerned to think analytically. Anyone who works for the state benefits from secure pension, holidays, inflation proof pay salaries, stress leave, a cosseted existence. Why would they object
The government, who caused this needless death and destruction ceratinly wont come clean, so for example, my MP (Chris Heaton Harris) for example wont answer my straight question about about if he objects to YouTubes censorship of the Andrew Bridgen vax harms debate.
The same 40% will show a high degree of correlation with those who think the planet is warming, that Brexit was bad, and that wokism = tolerance.
‘So what explains Brits’ continued support for a policy…’
Because the majority don’t get their information from sites like this. They only see/hear MSM which having indoctrinated the masses with a pack of government lies, never makes a correction when the truth is out, and just moves on to the next pack of Government lies.
Schools no longer encourage pupils to have an enquiring mind, teach how to expand their knowledge, self-teach, critical analysis.
We are in consequence a people in majority of State-dependent mindless blobs.
It is why we are plunged into Net Zero destruction because the masses ‘believe’ in climate change and that plastic straws are killing all marine life.
I have 500 plastic bendy straws to bring to the UK for my friend’s.
I know my friends will dispose of them properly.
If the result of changing my position was the realisation that I’d been a compliant, credulous coward, I’d also be wedded to the notion that it was all justified.
Because multi-milionairecommunist Susan Michie created an effective method of psychologial terroism.
I have worked from home for about 8-9 yrs, so it was business as usual for me during the lockdowns. However, a large number of friends and acquaintances sent me pictures of themselves sunning in the back garden due to the excellent weather at the time, laughing how they were getting paid the same amount of money on furlough that they would have after paying out travel costs and such. A perfect storm of good weather, people ignoring the rules to stay apart (that part I confess to ignoring as well) and being paid to stay at home made lockdowns a fun-filled holiday for a large chunk of the population. Add to that the brainwash that told them they were saving granny meant a pat on the back as well.
Total propaganda. If the BBC, the Gates funded Daily Telegraph, the Gates funded Guardian, Sky, ITV told the truth about Covid, the Covid Jab and lockdowns then most people wouldn’t agree.
The truth is that journalists are complicit in the crime of every century. They would rather let people die from the jab and ultimately see Britain turned into Communist China than lose their jobs.
******************************
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OMG, off topic but has anyone seen this absurd news? Apparently the word ”beacon” has negative connotations and is offensive within the context of climate change. Really, some people are earning a wage doing this for a living?? 😮
”The national park will now be officially referred to as the “Bannau Brycheiniog” National Park, granting the landscape a Welsh name, and steering clear of any associations with historical signal fires.
Officials said the symbol of a flaming beacon emitting carbon “does not fit with the ethos” of the national park as an eco-friendly organisation.
However, on Sunday night, a senior Conservative source attacked the decision as “pure virtue signalling” that would “do nothing to actually help the environment”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/17/brecon-beacons-net-zero-renamed-climate-change/
FFS!
Snap. That was my response too. I’m just catching up on here. I’ve been watching the debate about having a public referendum re the WHO’s attempts to grab and enforce world domination.
PS, the SNP and the Starmer bunch are all for supporting and agreeing to the proposed WHO / IHR takeover bid 😡
Ah yes, saw that advertised on James Roguski’s substack. Well do keep us posted but I should certainly think it’s worthy of a DS article in it’s own right tomorrow. It’s a flipping big deal after all! 😮
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-04-17/debates/12BE683F-A25C-46E5-9FE9-B9C12CCDA9B7/PandemicPreventionPreparednessAndResponseInternationalAgreement
It’s not the full debate record. They must still be typing it up…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T4XIl4kwynE&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Burning wood in a beacon is carbon neutral. Other trees will pull carbon straight back out of the air as part of the carbon cycle. This is just a pathetic excuse for an attack on our history and heritage by Kim Jong Drakeford.
I didn’t know that Snowdon and Snowdonia, the mountain and mountain range is now referred to as Yr Wyddfa and Eryri. 🙄
English speakers have no more obligation to use those names than we have to call Bombay “Mumbai” or Florence “Firenze”.
Why? Is it deemed too contradictory to the ‘global warming’ narrative? LMAO
Three years later I still haven’t changed my mind, lockdowns are wrong, the controls are wrong, the political group think was wrong and still is. The fall out and the financial burdens that have been caused by the covid fiasco will never be addressed, as the whole episode will be proven to be a failure of government, and that, their over inflated egos will never allow.
Seven: the British Public is unbelievably thick. (Which also pretty well cover one to six above.)
Eight: the British Public lacks any self respect.
Many moons ago the senior management team of my company had an off-site away-day meeting to discuss the findings from a questionnaire which asked our less senior colleagues what they thought of use ‘leaders”. It was not comfortable reading.
I was shocked – the first thing we discussed was: had our polling contractor inverted the result? Most of the ‘leaders’ could not believe that the staff thought we were sh*t. Most of us didn’t learn much from the exercise.
I see parallels: we have not got the message across to ‘the people’ that lockdown was unnecessary, didn’t work, that they still have to pay for it, that masks didn’t work, that the vaccines had unacceptable side effects. And not just ‘here’ (wherever you live) but damn-near world-wide.
If we can win that one we stand a chance of convincing ‘the people’ never to allow such abuses again.
7. They’re utter morons.
I sat in an online work meeting today where someone was ill with a terrible cough. “It’s not covid is it?” “No”. “Oh that’s ok then”. So he still feels like crap and is coughing his guts out but just so long as it’s not covid.
The straw poll I have surreptitiously conducted of my small circle of friends and neighbours produced a general consensus about the lockdowns thus: “I loved it. All that free time and no traffic and no pressure and no guilt about work and everywhere so quiet. I loved it.” In other words, it has precious little to do with covid, which they generally believe was greatly exaggerated – and they ask “after all, why did the ‘flu disappear? Probably the same thing.” But lockdown – it was fab.
I despair sometimes.
7th, the majority of the UK population are as thick as 2 planks
Have you looked around the average British town lately? Talked to people in casual encounters? Eavesdropped on conversations in pubs?
Unfortunately the majority of your fellow citizens are ignorant morons, unable to think for themselves (and having no desire to do so), and believing of more or less anything the corrupt and complicit MSM tells them.
They are as easy to herd as sheep for the farmer and his sheepdog, but unfortunately we are forced to run with the same flock.
Idle, Lazy people (mainly public sector) are in favour of lockdowns. Guaranteed salaries and more time to go shopping. On the Midland Metro last week Not a single muzzle. Just a clickbait headline from the Daily Sceptic. Sad.
The level of political engagement in the UK has been declining for years. So called experts in various fields come up with all sorts of tripe, sell it to our fawning TV and radio luvvies and people lap it up. Even if our leaders confessed that they used brainwashing techniques on the population to hide the fact that none of them knew what they were doing, public support for lockdown would only decline marginally. For the selfish majority, being paid by the state to sit at home with your family. without any risk to your job or welfare was like an extended holiday. Coupled with widespread political illiteracy, it is surprising perhaps that lockdowns are not still in place. .