The political “elite” clearly look on the rest of us as cattle to be herded, tagged, corralled and culled by their betters. That view of the rest of humanity justifies all manner of crimes against the herd and explains why their treatment of the  citizenry who place their trust in them is so amoral.

It is important not to lose sight of the fact that justifying their egregious treatment of the citizenry by pointing out the alleged dangers of the pandemic does not hold water. These people knew damn well that the alleged pandemic, based on fraudulent tests, false stats and outright propaganda lies, was not the threat it was made out to be, not even close.

Who is responsible for inflicting unethical behavioural-science ‘nudges’ on the British people?

The state’s strategic deployment of fear, shame and peer pressure – or ‘affect, ‘ego’ and ‘norms’ in the language of behavioural science – throughout the covid-19 pandemic, as a means of ‘nudging’ people’s with restrictions and the vaccine rollout has been widely criticised. Ethical concerns about the Government’s use of these psychological techniques in their messaging campaign arise from several aspects of this form of influence: the wilful infliction of emotional distress on the general population as a means of increasing conformity; the failure to seek informed consent from those targeted; the contentious and non-evidenced public health policies which these strategies helped to implement; and the fact that ‘nudges’ commonly exert their influence below a person’s level of consciousness, thereby fuelling the accusation that they are manipulative. The Fatal Conceit: The... F. A. Hayek Best Price: $5.75 Buy New $11.00 (as of 03:40 UTC - Details)

But who is primarily responsible for inflicting these morally dubious, and often damaging, behavioural-science ‘nudges’ on British citizens?

There are four groups of stakeholders who could feasibly be responsible for these egregious actions:

1. British Psychological Society (BPS)
2. Behavioural Insights Team (BIT)
3. Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B)
4. Elected politicians and their civil servants

To date, all four seem to be shirking any responsibility. Indeed, when probed, the responses of these collectives resemble a duplicitous hybrid of a police officer’s, ‘Move along, nothing to see here’, and the reggae musician Shaggy denying his misdemeanours with the mantra, ‘It wasn’t me’.

Let’s consider, in turn, each group of actors who might be responsible.

1. British Psychological Society (BPS)

The BPS is the professional organisation representing psychologists in the UK. Several of its prominent members have been actively involved in SAGE, providing psychological advice to Government about how to maximise the impact of the covid-19 messaging campaign.  One of the central roles of the BPS is to ensure that its members practice in a responsible and morally acceptable way. According to its Code of Ethics, psychologists should respect ‘consent’ and ‘self-determination’, while always ensuring ‘the avoidance of harm and the prevention of abuse or misuse of their contribution to society’. Given this remit, and the BPS’s role as the guardian of ethical psychological practice, presumably this learned organisation would thoroughly address our concerns about ‘nudging’, expressed in a letter signed by 46 psychologists and therapists, and submitted on the 6^th January 2021.

But no, they were having none of it!

An initial response from Dr Debra Malpass (Director of Knowledge and Insight) questioned whether the ‘nudges’ under scrutiny were actually covert, asserted that it was ‘not appropriate’ for the BPS to respond to concerns about unnamed psychologists, and that they were ‘incredibly proud’ of the ‘fantastic work done by psychologists throughout the pandemic’. When it subsequently became apparent that our questions had not been addressed by their ethics committee, we prompted them further and on the 1^st July 2021 Dr Roger Paxton (chair of the BPS Ethics Committee) responded, stridently arguing that:

• The psychological strategies deployed were ‘indirect’ rather than covert;
• The application of psychology in this instance fell outside the realm of individual health decisions (so the ethical requirement to obtain informed consent was not an issue);
• Levels of fear within the general population were proportionate to the objective risk posed by the virus;
• The psychologists’ role in the pandemic response demonstrated ‘social responsibility and the competent and responsible employment of psychological expertise’.

Dr Paxton’s claims constitute a misleading cocktail of distortion, evasion and disingenuousness.

So if the guardians of ethical psychological practice deny any wrongdoing – ‘move along, nothing to see here’ – who else might be responsible for the unethical application of behavioural science?

2. Behavioural Insights Team (BIT)

In 2010, in the Prime Minister’s office, the BIT was spawned: ‘The world’s first government institution dedicated to the application of behavioural science to policy’. The psychological strategies deployed by the BIT have been described as providing ‘low cost, low pain ways of nudging citizens … into new ways of acting by going with the grain of how we think and act’. Many of these techniques of persuasion act – to various degrees – below people’s conscious awareness.

Since its inception, the BIT has been led by Professor David Halpern who, along with at least two other BIT members, also participated in the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), a subgroup of SAGE that advised the Government on its covid-19 communications strategy. Over the last decade, the BIT has witnessed major expansion and now operates in many countries across the world.

Importantly, a 2010 document describing behavioural science techniques and co-written by Professor Halpern states: ‘Policymakers wishing to use these tools … need the approval of the public to do so’ (p74). More recently, in Professor Halpern’s book, Inside the Nudge Unit, he is even more emphatic about the importance of consent: ‘If Governments … wish to use behavioural insights, they must seek and maintain the permission of the public. Ultimately, you – the public, the citizen – need to decide what the objectives, and limits, of nudging and empirical testing should be’ (p375). As such, the leading voice of the BIT contradicts the above-mentioned Dr Paxton, chair of the BPS Ethics Committee. Social Justice Fallacies Sowell, Thomas Best Price: $8.07 Buy New $10.69 (as of 05:21 UTC - Details)

The malevolent influence of the BIT in promoting deployment of fear, shame and scapegoating as weapons of influence can be detected in a (subsequently redacted) document advising front-line healthcare staff about how to effectively promote the covid-19 vaccines. The paper – the product of a collaboration between the BIT and the NHS – included recommendations to ‘leverage anticipated regret’ in older people by telling them that the ‘over 65s are three times more likely to die if you get COVID’ and to tell young people that ‘normality can only return, for you and others, with your vaccination’ [my emphasis].

In light of the abuse of behavioural science throughout the covid-19 pandemic, have members of the BIT been announcing their disapproval? One of their former founder members, Dr Simon Ruda, has recently expressed concern, stating that ‘the most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed on the public’ – another comment at odds with Dr Paxton’s testimony. In contrast, the current BIT practitioners have remained silent about the ethical basis of their recent work, despite their sphere of influence broadening into many areas of our day-to-day lives, including zero-carbon green messages in the media and the work of Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs (the latter involvement potentially implicated in tragic consequences for some of those targeted).

Intriguingly, on the 31^st January 2022, I received an email from the BIT’s communication department denying any responsibility for the Government’s use of fear, shame and scapegoating in their covid-19 messaging. According to this spokesperson, ‘none of the examples you reference were actually our work or anything we worked on at all, and we categorically do not believe in using fear as a tactic’.

So it’s an emphatic, ‘It wasn’t me’ from the BIT.

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