A plethora of on-message communicators, embedded in governments and global organisations, are engaged in disseminating messages to the masses urging us all to change our behaviours so as to save the world from purported existential threats. Near the top of the pyramid of these influencers are behavioural scientists, with the U.K. hosting many such ‘nudgers’ skilled in the art of persuading the populace to comply with diktats to ‘save’ the planet from a looming viral or climate apocalypse. But do these various mouthpieces promoting globalist agendas ever pause to question the legitimacy their goals? Recent evidence would suggest not.
We were only following orders, m’lud
Professional communicators know that human beings are more amenable to persuasion if the messenger is a trusted source. White-coated ‘doctors’ in the infamous Milgram experiments in the early 1960s represent a stark example of this phenomenon, naïve subjects demonstrating a willingness to administer what they believed to be life-threatening electric shocks when asked to do so by an ‘expert’. This propensity to obey authority was recognised in the influential ‘Mindspace‘ (2010) document, where a ‘messenger’ nudge (based on the fact that the source of the information matters) is one of nine recommended behavioural science strategies to strengthen Government communications and thereby win people’s compliance with state diktats. We are currently witnessing a coordinated effort to exploit this inherent inclination to believe authoritative sources as a means of promoting climate catastrophism.
Trust me, I’m a doctor
The current year has already spawned two documents that peddle the climate-Armageddon narrative and, shamelessly, strive to exploit people’s inclination to swallow the proclamations of those in white coats. These documents are: a World Health Organisation (WHO) offering titled, ‘Communicating on Climate Change and Health: Toolkit for Health Professionals’, and ‘The Green Physician Toolkit’ produced by the Royal College of Physicians.
Published in March 2024, the WHO tells health professionals that, “This toolkit will help you become an effective and powerful climate communicator.” The two authors of the document, Remy Shergill and Shreya Shrikhande, display impressive world-government credentials: the former belonging to Australia’s “Health and Climate Alliance”, as well as being a co-chair of a “Planetary Health Working Group” at the George Institute for Global Health; the latter a member of the “Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute”. It is acknowledged in the preamble that the content is informed by “several consultation sessions with communications experts”. Given that the prominent behavioural scientist Professor Susan Michie is currently the chair of the WHO’s “Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights”, it is reasonable to assume that Michie (or her team of nudgers) have significantly shaped the content of this guidance.
Drawing heavily on the WHO document, the ‘Green Physician Toolkit’ was published in July. It boldly announces that “Physicians have a vital role to play in helping the NHS reach its Net Zero goal”. Predictably, the Royal College of Physicians’ booklet uncritically regurgitates the climate-emergency propaganda, citing fanciful modelled estimates of potential excess deaths resulting from extreme weather (incorporating, of course, insidious masked figures to perpetuate fear). The toolkit goes on to recommend specific actions for its members, such as: “including sustainability as a standing item in all clinical governance meetings”; “communicating with patients about climate change to help them understand how it will affect their health”; and to “advocate for [sic] organisational change such as divestment from fossil fuel companies and implementation of green plans”. If, after Covid, we needed any more evidence of the politicisation of the medical profession, this is it.
Both these documents explicitly exploit the messenger nudge. Thus, the WHO publication states, “Health professionals wear many hats in society – one of which is a trusted community voice.” By recruiting these respected mouthpieces, the authors aim to enable health professionals to “communicate with confidence” and thereby “empower… patients, clients and communities to take measures that will help limit climate change”. Similarly, the ‘Green Physician Toolkit’ includes the line, “You are uniquely placed as a trusted member of the community to discuss public health threats with patients.” It is clear that those pushing climate catastrophism agendas are unashamedly taking advantage of the fact that most people give credence to what their doctors tell them.
Are doctors getting dimmer?
Gaining access to medical school has long been considered one of the most formidable of academic challenges, requiring the highest A-level qualifications for entry. Once accepted onto a course, aspiring doctors must navigate a long and rigorous training programme, requiring the assimilation of huge amounts of information. At its best, the process produces highly knowledgeable physicians who can skilfully combine their in-depth understanding of the human body with their high levels of general intelligence so as to expertly tailor an optimal medical intervention for each individual patient. Alas – although many such practitioners remain – it seems that their number is dwindling year on year, replaced by an entity devoid of critical thinking who robotically follows top-down directives.
Based on my extended experience working in the NHS, I suspect the rot set in around the turn of the century with the increased reliance on centrally constructed protocols to direct healthcare interventions – of the type, “if X applies, then do Y”.. The traditional GP, who once expertly combined multiple information sources (the presenting symptoms, knowledge of disease processes, the patient’s medical history, lifestyle and personal preferences), has too often been replaced by a passive and unthinking operative who instinctively looks upwards for instruction from technocrats.
The content of the two previously mentioned ‘climate emergency’ documents provide support for my doctors-are-getting-dimmer hypothesis. For instance, both publications perpetuate the ‘science is settled’ oxymoron: the WHO paper cites the David Attenborough quote, “Saving the planet is no longer just a scientific challenge but a communications challenge”; the Royal College of Physicians booklet implores its members, “Don’t discuss the science”. Clearly, the overarching directive is to “do as you’re told”, without any deliberation or reflection on the legitimacy of the instruction. Instead, their technocratic thought leaders relay communication advice such as, “Keep the message simple, and repeat it often” and “Tell stories to connect people”. Should I ever visit my GP in the future, I imagine being told:
Okay, so you’re worried about your testicular lump, Mr. Sidley, but you really need to keep your concerns in perspective; do you know the world is burning up as we speak, burning up as we speak, burning up as we speak. And once upon a time – I think it was around the late 1990s – I visited the Gulf of Mexico and was informed by a local barman, while he served me my third shot of Tequila, that sea levels are on the rise…
It is, of course, unfair to suggest all physicians are displaying intellectual decline. Encouragingly, when the ‘Green Physician Toolkit’ was posted on a GP online forum, it evoked some ridicule, with comments such as “virtue signalling and no use to anyone”, “seriously unethical” and “is this some kind of parody?” Also, it would be wrong to suggest that it is only the medical professions that engages in this mindless collusion with climate catastrophism. The “U.K. Health Alliance on Climate Change“, whose central mission is “Empowering health professionals to advocate for [sic] better responses to climate change”, is an association of 48 healthcare organisations. While medical professions constitute the bulk of the membership, this collective of trusted messengers also comprises the British Dental Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Association of Clinical Psychologists.
Do pro-Government influencers ever check the legitimacy of their goals?
Whether it be under the banner of ‘deadly pandemic’, ‘climate Armageddon’ or other purported existential crisis, the state recruits an array of trusted messengers to impress the dominant narrative onto the masses, and thereby lever compliance with its latest diktats. Is it unreasonable to suggest that those engaged in this mission to relay Government communications should first check the validity of the goals that they are promoting?
Arguably, this question can most forcibly be put to those professionals at the top of the communication pyramid whose raison d’être is to enhance the power of the state’s official messaging: the behavioural scientists. During Covid, nudgers on the specialist SAGE subgroup, the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), routinely encouraged the deployment of fear, shame and peer pressure to encourage compliance with the draconian restrictions and subsequent vaccine rollout. Did prominent behavioural scientists on the SPI-B – such as Professors David Halpern and Susan Michie – ever pause to reflect on the dire consequences of the behaviours they were pushing? For example, that lockdowns were an ineffectual strategy for controlling viral spread, but inflicted huge damage (including increased mortality) upon ordinary people in the U.K. and across the world. Or that, in 2020, there was already robust evidence that masks were of no benefit in reducing the spread of respiratory pathogens, yet would inflict a range of physical, social and psychological harms.
Celebrities can also be powerful influencers. During Covid, a collective of actors and comedians combined forces to urge ethnic minorities to accept the Covid vaccines:
I want to implore everyone to get their vaccine when called, so we can get back to the all-singing, all-dancing, rhythm of life that we love.
Comedian David Walliams
Thank you to the millions who have already received their vaccinations and please “just get your vaccine” to the rest. Vaccines are helping us get back to everything we love.
Actor Jim Broadbent
We love you. We don’t want you to get sick. We don’t want you to die… when your turn comes, take the jab.
Comedian Lenny Henry, in his letter to “Black Britain”
These three high profile mouthpieces also participated in an emotion-laden film espousing the benefits of the jabs. (Intriguingly this – cringeworthy – film is now blocked on the official GOV.UK website, but can still be viewed here.)
I have no doubt that, in this instance, the motives of these celebrities were altruistic. Furthermore, it is perhaps unfair to expect non-academics to do their own in-depth research before agreeing to lend their considerable weight to such ‘public health’ campaigns. But I do not think it is too much to ask that high profile media figures, or agents on their behalf, should ensure there is a no realistic risk that the behaviours they are beseeching us to carry out will do more harm than good. After all, encouraging their fans to accept an experimental medical intervention that increases risk of myocarditis and blood clots is a calamitous outcome – and not a good look for the celebrities involved.
And then we have the medical doctors. Is it unreasonable to suggest that these highly educated professionals should be conversant with the fact that the strongest predictor of health is wealth, and that policies, like the Net Zero madness, impoverish us all? Are they blissfully unaware that Nobel-prize winning physicist Dr. John Clauser has concluded that the dominant climate narrative is “a dangerous corruption of science”? Do these physicians know that, in August 2022, over 1,200 scientists and professionals signed a declaration that, “There is no climate emergency”’? (A remarkably high figure, particularly when one considers the extraordinary levels of censorship, cancellation and smearing that awaits any expert brave enough to speak openly against the dominant climate narrative; for example, a 2022 research paper by four Italian scientists, that concluded that a “climate emergency” is not supported by the data was subsequently censored and retracted.)
Alas, it appears that our healthcare experts – or, perhaps more pertinently, the leaders of their professional bodies – blindly swallow whatever their elite paymasters espouse, thereby colluding in the propagation of ideologically-driven narratives, blinded to the collateral damage of their endeavours.
Concluding comments
Words emanating from messengers that are perceived as authoritative are likely to be more persuasive. Consequently, this ‘messenger’ nudge is routinely exploited by governments as a means of getting the populace to obey their decrees. Over recent years, healthcare professionals and TV celebrities have been recruited to act as influential mouthpieces, with behavioural scientists often providing guidance regarding what they should say.
It is incumbent on these influencers to check the legitimacy of the goals they are promoting before agreeing to be the state’s mouthpieces. Otherwise, they risk being collaborators in spreading messages that inflict more harm than good, as well as destroying their own reputations and the credibility of the professions to which they belong.
Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of the Smile Free campaign opposed to mask mandates. Subscribe to his Substack page.
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Big respect to the author for speaking up. I’ll bet money that the perv had done it before, probably to his own son, and has most likely done it after the incident described above. He was a paedophile and don’t they say paedos cannot be rehabilitated? It’s not just a passing fancy, get it out of your system and then all deviant impulses disappear. You’re either programmed that way or you aren’t. But back in those days many things went on behind closed doors that were not talked about out in the open, this type of incident being just one example.
Toby, Cooper’s criticism of Raymond Baxter tells us less about Baxter than it does about your would-be molester. I recall Baxter’s authoritative voice introducing ‘Tomorrow’s World’ in the 60s. Added to which he (Baxter) was a decorated Spitfire pilot during the WW2. To be thought a “complete c***” by Cooper was something of a badge of honour.
The BPC.
I’ve asked this question since 2012 and never received an adequate reply.
What is the evidence (excluding allegations) that Jimmy savile committed the crimes he’s accused of?
Yes I’ll get lots of down ticks but, almost certainly, no reply to the actual question.
Maybe they buried all their ( whoever they were/are) dirty washing with Savile
No evidence then?
Savile suffered from mass hysteria as you know.
I see what you did there.
Thanks for the msg BTW..
No evidence then?
Lots of witness statements, plus he was well known by people who knew him and knew of him to be a pervert. It is hard to bring a dead person to trial (I shouldn’t need to say that).
Lots of witness statements that turned out to be false, and “I always knew he was a wrong un (but did nothing)” hearsay allegations by the sort of celebs who on another occasion promoted COVID jabs; perhaps we should believe them about that too. There was a very lengthy and public trawling operation for evidence, with financial incentives from his estate and, for those who went public, from newspaper stories, with no downside for false testimony. The late lawyer Susanne Nundy (the “Anna Raccoon” blogger), who had been a resident at the Duncroft school for girls where the allegations started, took a strong interest in the case and her conclusion was that there was no evidence that was made public that he’d done what he was accused of.
Well I’m confident that either way, had he been alive today, he’d be allowed to keep his bank account.
And remarkably, although the allegations ran into the hundreds, not a single documented police complaint made at the time,
I was sexually abused, by a teacher at a Catholic school, I never complained to the police. So I understand why there was “not a single documented police complaint made at the time”, and you don’t. It was a very different time.
No evidence then?
The evidence is documented in “‘Giving Victims a Voice’ A joint MPS and NSPCC report into allegations of sexual abuse made against Jimmy Savile under Operation Yewtree”
https://library.nspcc.org.uk/HeritageScripts/Hapi.dll/filetransfer/2013GivingVictimsAVoiceSexualAllegationsMadeAgainstJimmySavile.pdf?filename=CC18C70DB7C8C3D49403BB94EB176F95207E5F66235DCA89651F5ED2BA5DA9311A3547010EB1745F9098C8189E66B54F16BBCA4419250DDAE584462476E362622BD259A20D1597309210AC995C99F449C7702D4CF7627CBCEC72291068BFEAFDDC8C9625B71658F22EAD1E815FED12FF6D0DEB5CDBB40AEA4EF5D058E57168353BEB2DA3730B57DF729865CC3271FEE73BB1D434AB645BB5&DataSetName=LIVEDATA
If you think more than 400 people, who don’t know each, making the same type of detailed serious allegations isn’t “evidence” because they could all be lying, then you need to explain why you don’t believe any of them and explain what you would regard as “evidence” for any sexual crimes.
“…more than 400 people, who don’t know each other,”!
I would regard correspondence, video, audio, photographic, forensic evidence, confession, police complaints at the time as evidence.
There is nothing for Jimmy saville.
Toby, well done for putting this on the recors.
What I have found amazing is how meny in the MSM and politics behave like that but are never reported. Why do they congregate there.
In all my year sin business at senior managerial level I only once ever had a similar situation. It eas a 3 something woman trying it on with a 20 year old woman whose mother called in to complain.
Wow, the BBC sure seems to be a really big magnet for creeps and nonces! You may recall one Jimmy Saville, for example.
I wonder if the reason his own son didn’t want to go on holiday to Skye was about a great deal more than boredom?
A very evocative account of the attitudes of the time. I was 14 in 1966, so a bit older, and fortunately do not recall a similar incident but I do remember the lack of questioning of motive, as well as the automatic deference to authority. A lot of people had the capacity to keep secrets, good and bad.
Fascinating story and glad you managed to avoid full-on sexual abuse by the sounds of it. I imagine many people can recount experiences of inappropriate behaviour if not full-on sexual abuse during that era. It does seem prominent people who one might describe as “larger than life” are prone to getting carried away (to use a polite term for such perverts) and taking advantage of vulnerable or impressionable youngsters. I’m not making excuses, just observations and I take the point make by a fellow commentator that evidence of Jimmy Saville’s abuses is thin on the ground. I wonder if anything has changed nowadays. It maybe that would-be abusers are more aware that they may get exposed if not brought to justice.
I also had this instinct to stay silent when similar things happened to me as a 16-17 year old – being driven back from a babysitting assignment or given a lift back to a campsite. I struggled and ran too, suffering little more than ruffled feathers – though it does, as you note, stick in the memory.
It is worth pondering this instinct to stay shtum. I suspect it is an evolutionary adaptation – better survival rates for those who did not tell tales on powerful people. When Trump famously observed that ‘it was amazing what you got away with once you were perceived as rich and powerful,’ I felt he was expressing honest surprise at his happy discovery as much as simply boasting. Better appreciation of this mechanism should help us stamp out the unacceptable exploitation of the young and powerless.
How many avuncular figures turned out to have WHT (wandering Hand Trouble) after drinking? Many women remember being groped by such men when they were young. It was such a surprise/shock (the switch from avuncular to groper) that you didn’t know what to do apart from try to distance yourself from them and keep your distance thereafter.
Groping is a strange thing – being groped so unpleasant, what do the gropers think they are doing apart from hurting their victim? It surely is a power thing.