Covid-19 reverse psychology: Did Johnson play the left by ‘pretending’ he didn’t desire a lockdown so it may get public assist?

The ‘liberal-left’ narrative that the UK Tory authorities needed to pursue Covid-19 ‘herd immunity’ as a substitute of a lockdown has been shattered by official filings which seems to point out the alternative was the case.

The phrase ‘smoking gun’ is oft-overused, however it’s certainly applicable in relation to the report within the Day by day Telegraph newspaper that the UK authorities struck a deal value £119m with an American promoting firm, OMD Group, urging folks to ‘Keep House, Keep Secure’ a full three weeks earlier than Boris Johnson ordered a lockdown. 

Take into consideration what this implies. It’s protected to imagine that if this huge cash deal was struck on 2nd March, the preparations started quite a bit earlier – in February, or extra seemingly, even sooner than that. You don’t simply arrange an promoting marketing campaign with a serious US company in a few hours.

What does this inform us? Properly, mainly all the pieces we thought we knew about how Britain got here to be locked down on 23rd March might be false.

The dominant narrative is that Bojo, the hapless ‘clown’ and his Keystone Cops Cupboard had been pushed into lockdown. Pushed by public opinion. Pushed by the ‘specialists’. Pushed by the Premier League. Pushed by the ‘Left’. Pushed by Piers Morgan. Pushed by ‘Professor Doom’ Neil Ferguson and his ludicrous ‘modelling’.

Learn extra

But when that they had already organized a £119m lockdown promoting marketing campaign, which referenced emergency financial measures in its communication technique, it could imply the choice to lockdown had already been taken many weeks earlier. On the identical time, the federal government was giving each impression that they weren’t going to lockdown.

Why did they do that? Properly, put your self within the footwear of Johnson and his high aide Dominic Cummings. If a Conservative authorities, and one which has already been denounced as by the liberal-left for being pro-Brexit, and anti-free motion, had stated brazenly in February that they had been planning to lock Britain down there would have been an outcry. The large query for the federal government was: how can we lock the nation down, with out stirring the liberal-left nonetheless additional and upsetting mass public opposition. What if the reply then was: fake that we don’t desire a lockdown? Then the binary, groupthink ‘tradition warriors’ would make sure you press for one! They’d find yourself calling for the federal government to do precisely what the federal government had deliberate to do all alongside! Excessive-fives all spherical at Quantity 10.

Suppose again to March.

Reporting on the seemingly muddled UK response to the virus then made lots of people assume that the intention was to let the virus “cross via” the group. Was this intentional?

There’s grounds for believing it was.  

A a lot publicised report within the Sunday Occasions stated that Dom Cummings, a hated determine for hard-core Remainers, had argued in opposition to strict measures at a personal assembly on the finish of February. No 10 denied the declare, calling it a fabrication.

However the report made an impression. If ‘Lethal Dom’ needs herd immunity then certainly we have to do the alternative and lockdown, was the Pavlovian response of many on the left. 

Additionally on rt.com

Then there was the reporting, or somewhat misreporting of Premier Johnson’s “take it on the chin” tv interview of fifth March. Johnson stated that one of many theories (he didn’t point out herd immunity by title) of coping with the virus was “that maybe you may take it on the chin, take it multi functional go and permit the illness, because it had been, to maneuver via the inhabitants, with out taking as many draconian measures.”

That was like a crimson rag to a bull to those that had been already satisfied the federal government’s ‘response’ was too laid-back. However it’s attention-grabbing to notice that the Prime Minister wasn’t advocating ‘taking it on the chin’ – merely saying it was one concept that had been put ahead. He truly stated just a few seconds later: “I believe it could be higher if we take all of the measures that we will now to cease the height of the illness being as tough for the NHS because it is perhaps”.

Johnson was truly hinting about extra restrictions to come back, however all of the liberal-left may hear was the alternative.

By getting his opponents to push for a lockdown, by making them imagine he opposed one, Johnson assured that when a lockdown was lastly introduced, there’d be a a lot wider acceptance of it. All year long the sample has continued. The nice enablers of the federal government’s Covid authoritarianism have been these on the left, for example Richard Burgon MP, whose line of assault has not been to oppose Tory restrictions however to say that the restrictions both don’t go far sufficient or had been being eased too quickly. 

The Authorities was too gradual to lockdown.

Now they’re dashing re-opening sectors of the financial system, risking folks's well being and security.

Folks and well being should come earlier than personal revenue.

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) July 1, 2020

The exact same individuals who had been calling Johnson an ‘extremist’, even a ‘fascist’ earlier than March, have ended up being his witting (or unwitting) accomplices. It’s arduous to flee the conclusion that the federal government has performed its opponents like a violin. Now right here’s a thought.

Suppose that as a substitute of being a ’clown’ and a ’buffoon’ Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was truly far smarter than anybody provides him credit score for? We’ve all learn thriller tales when the bar room fool, who performs at being drunk, is definitely the very sober felony mastermind. May the ‘clown’ truly be enjoying the clown with a view to get the opposition to pressurise him to do the issues he needs to do anyway?

Learn extra

And what about Dom Cummings? Love him or detest him, he ain’t dumb. He’s a pupil of Russian historical past. He’s stated to cite Lenin. And if he admires Vladimir Ilyich, he might be an admirer of Felix Dzerzhinsky too. And the way did ‘Iron Felix’ hold the present on the street after 1917? He arrange the ‘Belief‘. The Bolshevik Counter Espionage operation which managed, and misdirected, the anti-Bolshevik ‘White Russian’ opposition.

The opposition ended up calling for issues that the federal government needed them to name for. Fairly like Labour going into the final election pledging for a ‘2nd referendum’ on Europe, or pushing for a lockdown in 2020. By supporting a lockdown, whereas giving the impression they opposed one, had been Johnson and his authorities enjoying chess, when everybody else, who thought they had been being so intelligent, was enjoying checkers?

The OMD deal is our strongest clue but that the ‘reluctant lockdowners’ had it deliberate for fairly a while.

Suppose your folks would have an interest? Share this story!