UK Lockdown Files: Health Minister Wanted to 'Frighten' Britons into Compliance

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Facts

• Former UK health minister Matt Hancock suggested to an aide that they 'frighten the pants off everyone' about COVID to ensure compliance with government restrictions, leaked text messages published in the Telegraph revealed over the weekend.¹
• The message came in December 2020 when the government feared backlash to its plan to reverse a policy that would have relaxed the rules over the Christmas period. The aide suggested to Hancock: 'Rather than doing too much forward signaling, we can roll pitch with the new strain.'¹
• Hancock added, 'We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain,' to which the aide said, 'Yep that's what will get proper behaviour change.' Hancock then asked when they could 'deploy' the announcement of a new COVID variant, which was publicly announced a day later.²
• In a separate conversation in January 2021, when restrictions were still in place, Simon Case, head of the Civil Service, suggested to Hancock that minor amendments to the rules would be seen as 'ridiculous.' Instead, he suggested 'ramping up messaging' in which the 'fear/guilt factor' was 'vital.'¹
• Texts also reveal that Hancock tried to sack Sir Jeremy Farrar of the independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies for questioning proposals to shut down Public Health England and replace it with a body to be run by a friend of Hancock.³
• Hancock reportedly also ignored the advice of Sir Christopher Witty, England's Chief Medical Officer, to reduce quarantine times with testing from 14 days to seven because it would 'imply we’ve been getting it wrong' and that the period was 'too long all along.'⁴
• Hancock was ultimately forced to resign in June 2021 when pictures released by the Sun newspaper showed the married man kissing a senior aide in violation of his own department's guidelines for social distancing and avoiding physical contact.⁵

Sources: ¹BBC News, ²Evening standard, ³The national, ⁴The telegraph and ⁵NBC.

Narratives

• Left narrative, as provided by Guardian. While the public is right to demand answers to questions on whether the government acted appropriately during the COVID pandemic, the leak of these messages leads to a one-sided inquisition by those that were against lockdowns. What we need is an independent inquiry that can tackle these questions accurately and fairly, with proper public health context in mind.
• Right narrative, as provided by Spectator (UK). What we see from the release of these text messages is that the government was consciously using irrational fear as a tool to make the public compliant with its COVID policies. Knowingly crippling the psyches of Britons for the sole purpose of retaining a public policy is inexcusable. Where were the ministerial voices of caution throughout this disastrous public health experiment?