Laura Dodsworth - A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic

A State of Fear is dark and compelling, and yet woven throughout with the determination the heartfelt need to get beyond these dreadful days. When governments sow fear they must reap a bitter crop. From the beginning of lockdown I have been worried to death about the certain and unavoidable consequences of making and keeping an entire population frightened. Already we see that too many people regard their fellow citizens even family and friends as the enemy, petri dishes swimming with contagion. As a population and a society we are atomised as never before. I can scarcely imagine how the damage done might be undone. Most of all I fear what all of this has done and will continue to do to compromise the futures of our children. All of these concerns and many more besides are given a desperately needed airing between the pages of this book. This is a timely piece of work, shot through with the voices of frightened people. Those voices must be heard and properly listened to. Altogether this is a fascinating consideration of how fear has been used again and again throughout history and in one civilisation after another, so that governments and others in authority might get their own way. A State of Fear is an affecting and troubling read.

Neil Oliver, writer and broadcaster

This is an important book. The use of fear as a tool of political management is a major challenge to democracy which everyone should reflect upon, whatever their view about lockdowns and Covid-19.

Lord Sumption

This book is a thoroughly researched account of the amplification of public fear throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. It asks vital questions about the science and ethics of behavioural interventions. These have gone beyond nudging to undermine democratic values and the rule of law. UK citizens will suffer from the consequences for many years to come.

Robert Dingwall, Professor of Sociology, Nottingham Trent University

A chilling post-mortem of 2020s silent epidemic - fear - and how it was used by a behavioural science apparat to terrify us into submission. Its a thorough, fascinating and important book which I absolutely loved I couldnt put it down!

Patrick Fagan, behavioural scientist

Laura Dodsworth slices open the culture of fear we have been deliberately manipulated to experience in this pandemic crisis with a journalistic forensic scalpel. The role of behavioural science in instilling fear in the UK population is explored through the lens of those involved in developing policies, outlier academics, experts and researchers who have questioned the dominant fear-based policy narrative. Analysis of events and expert testimony is interspersed with heart-breaking vignettes of the real-life experiences of fear that people lived with during the pandemic. The events and experiences of this past year will take considerable time for us to unpack and comprehend, and A State of Fear is an excellent early analysis of one of the most concerning elements of government policy in this crisis. I was gripped by it and devoured it in one sitting. There is no doubt that our collective cognitive roadmap in relation to fear and risk perception has been completely obliterated in the past year. Naming and acknowledging what has happened is an important first step to recovery. Books like this will help us get there and heal.

Professor Ellen Townsend,

Professor of Psychology, University of Nottingham

Laura Dodsworth has a rare and beautiful talent to observe a situation, process its many layers and present it to the world in exquisite, thought-provoking detail. Without hysteria or anger, she has studied and distilled the forces at work throughout the Covid pandemic so that we may see the world more clearly. This is a vital, eye-opening book which provides balance to an otherwise one-sided story.

Beverley Turner, writer and broadcaster

What speaks so powerfully in this work are the voices of those affected by the extraordinary social experiment that lockdown has been. Dodsworth draws out their experiences and puts them centre stage, while taking the reader through the techniques and strategies through which fear was made the most potent weapon in obtaining submission. A stimulating and often disturbing read.

Francis Hoar, barrister

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laura Dodsworth is an author, journalist, photographer and filmmaker. Her books Bare Reality: 100 women, their breasts, their stories, Manhood: The Bare Reality and Womanhood: The Bare Reality have attracted worldwide media coverage and excellent reviews. Laura and the creation of Womanhood were the subject of a documentary for Channel 4, 100 Vaginas, which has been broadcast around the world.

A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic

First published in the UK by Pinter & Martin Ltd 2021

Copyright Laura Dodsworth 2021

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-78066-720-1

Also available as an ebook and audiobook

The right of Laura Dodsworth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of 1988

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade and otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Printed in the UK by Martins the Printers Ltd.

This book has been printed on paper that is sourced and harvested from sustainable forests and is FSC accredited

Pinter & Martin Ltd

6 Effra Parade

London SW2 1PS

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CONTENTS

INTERVIEWS

Names have been changed to protect anonymity.

The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.

From Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures, by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), 22 March 2020.

T his is a book about fear. Fear of a virus. Fear of death. Fear of change, fear of the unknown. Fear of ulterior motives, agenda and conspiracy. Fear for the rule of law, democracy, the western liberal way of life. Fear of loss: losing our jobs, our culture, our connections, our health, our minds. Its also about how the government weaponised our fear against us supposedly in our best interests until we were one of the most frightened countries in the world.

In one of the most extraordinary documents ever revealed to the British public, the behavioural scientists advising the UK government recommended that we needed to be frightened. The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) said in their report Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures, dated 22 March 2020, that a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened; it could be that they are reassured by the low death rate in their demographic group, although levels of concern may be rising. As a result they recommended that the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging. In essence, the government was advised to frighten the British public to encourage adherence to the emergency lockdown regulations.