2023
This comparatively short, and somewhat belated, blog is simply offered in order to highlight some of the 'Leaked WhatsApp messages' that were uncovered by the journalist, Isabel Oakeshott, and shared within The Daily Telegraph on a series of days within March 2023, under the generic heading of 'The Lockdown Files' - and in so doing completes the covid series of blogs, if you will - as well as acting as a ready vehicle for the chosen musical accompaniment to such a blog ...
If my memory serves me correctly, Isabel was apparently provided with such details when given a mass of such communications by Matt Hancock the then Health Secretary, in order that a book may be published...
Isabel was rather shocked at some of the details uncovered, and thus seemingly felt morally dutibound to share it (“in the overwhelming public interest”) with the general public via The Daily Telegraph...
Within 'Matt Hancock's plan to ‘frighten the pants off everyone’ about Covid' (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/project-fear-covid-lockdown-files-matt-hancock-whatsapp/) are some of the following excerpts...
1) 'Leaked WhatsApp messages reveal how health secretary hoped to shock public into complying with ever-changing lockdown rules
Throughout the course of the pandemic, officials and ministers wrestled with how to ensure the public complied with ever-changing lockdown restrictions. One weapon in their arsenal was fear.
“We frighten the pants off everyone,” Matt Hancock suggested during one WhatsApp message with his media adviser.
The then health secretary was not alone in his desire to scare the public into compliance. The WhatsApp messages seen by The Telegraph show how several members of Mr Hancock’s team engaged in a kind of “Project Fear”, in which they spoke of how to utilise “fear and guilt” to make people obey lockdown.' ...
2) 'With recorded Covid cases now down to just 689, the Government was days away from reopening pubs, restaurants and hairdressing salons.
But on June 30 2020, Leicester had just gone into a local lockdown. In a WhatsApp group called “Local Action Committee”, Emma Dean, Mr Hancock’s special adviser on policy, reported back to the group a rumour that Milton Keynes may be the next town plunged into a local lockdown.
Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, Mr Hancock’s media adviser, replied that it would not be “unhelpful” for the public to think they could be next.' ...
3) 'In a conversation with a civil servant, Damon Poole, Mr Hancock’s media adviser, said that failing to publish the data can be turned to their advantage because it “helps the narrative that things are really bad”.' ...
'Damon Poole Department of Health Media Special Adviser
It helps the narrative that things are really bad if we don’t publish' ...
4) 13 December 2020 selected communications...
'11:15 Matt Hancock
We frighten the pants of everyone with the new strain
11:17 Damon Poole
Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour change
11:17 Matt Hancock
When do we deploy the new variant' ...
5) 'In Jan 2021, Britain is in a third national lockdown, with schools shut and people told to work from home.
Four days later, on Jan 10, Mr Hancock and Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary and therefore the country’s most powerful civil servant, discussed more stringent measures that they could introduce.
They agreed that minor adjustments, such as banning angling, would be “parodied galore” - so decided that “fear” and/or “guilt” were vital tools in ensuring compliance.
They discussed making mask-wearing mandatory in “all settings” because it had a “very visible impact”.' ...
6) In another 'Lockdown Files' article...
Matt Hancock’s secret plan to import French Covid patients
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/06/french-covid-patients-plan-lockdown-matt-hancock/
...The then Health Minister, Matt Hancock, seemingly wished to bolster the UK covid statistics by offering to allow French covid patients UK hospital beds/facilities, if my interpretation of such information is correct...
...For one particular Daily Telegraph commenter typed, in reply to someone elses comment...
'Is this so he could include them in the UK’s covid figures?' - this is what i thought upon reading the word 'privately'...
7) Apparently at the very beginning of the 'Covid pandemic' there was talk amongst officials which considered the killing of everyones cats, if my memory serves me correctly - if correct, then i guess they simply decided that people may not readily comply eh...
It was the 'when do we deploy the new variant' question, asked by Matt Hancock, that really got my attention...
For it paints the picture of a gun already/pre loaded with bullets, with the eager gun holder asking when he/she can fire the first/next bullet...
And as is known, the firing of a gun can indeed 'frighten the pants off' people - especially if the fired bullet comes whizzing past one of your earoles eh...
Frightening people into compliance eh - unbelievable - but, for me anyway, the really scary thing was how easily the masses soaked up all that was repeatedly fed to them, on a daily basis - for, rightly or wrongly, it brings to mind something that Goebbels (the WW2 German propaganda minister) once said, 'if you repeat a lie often enough then people will believe it' - the end...
(https://www.ourquantumparticulates.org/videos/a-covid-summary)