The anticipation that the Lockdown is about to end is more than palpable and has been for several days. People are in two groups: Those who want to be out, back at work and do get on with whatever it is that they want to do, and those who are too terrified to live because they have been scared to death with manipulative propaganda and now believe that the world can be stopped from turning until the Coronavirus problem has been solved.
The black magic that is Behavioural Insights should have come with a warning clause that using them in the wrong way can create far more problems than they will ever fix and particularly in an emergency when the instigator feels that their back is up against a wall.
The messages that we have become used to like ‘stay at home, save lives’, ‘protect the NHS’ and ‘social distancing’ have created a new, powerful and completely shit-scared demographic within our society that is now too afraid of dying from Coronavirus to actually live.
The problem has been compounded by the Chancellors knee-jerk giveaway which has created the misconception amongst many of the same people that they can stay at home and be paid at least 80% of their full wage to do so indefinitely, whilst empowering them to feel it ok to preach and project vitriol at anyone else who dares to break the framework of the social distancing measures that have been imposed or to speak up about the reality of the damage the Johnson Government has already done to an economy which is about facilitating everyones lives and not just their own.
With the Lockdown and the measures that Boris & co implemented to try and control a situation that can only be managed unleashed and now building up a momentum of their own, it is no great surprise that the Government is looking for some kind of release.
The problem is that they have created so much fear on one side and resentment of the damage they are doing and the control they are imposing on us all on the other, that there is simply no longer any happy median to be found in between.
Later today we are expecting Boris to announce that the Lockdown will be reduced in some ways, but probably not in any way as drastically as many of us had hoped.
But if the messaging Boris is now going to try and use to juggle the thoughts and actions of the disaffected vs those he has successfully manipulated and psychologically abused with replacement slogans like those that have appeared in the media today (pictured), you can be sure that this Government really is no longer in control of anything that is happening now, nor what happens next – that is of course if they ever actually were.
Adam Tugwell 