ukcolumn--2020-05-03--Historical Reflections on Social Distancing

When I was around twelve years old , I was introduced to Boccacio ’ s Decameron , in a largely forgotten chapter of my school textbook on European history .
The textbook ’ s author told how in that collection of short stories , Boccacio described a group of seven women and three men who had fled to Florence during the bubonic plague in the fourteenth century .
Interspersed with bawdy tales of intrigue among travelling merchants and corrupt members of the clergy , we are told of how the plague made parents shun their own children .
Yes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and they committed a new sin — social distancing .
Crazy times .
Avowed Christian people were constantly suspicious of each other , even lovers .
Then , once the plague finally passed , people only emerged from quarantine and self-isolation very tentatively and carefully , and continued to social distance , held by the thought that just one rodent that could make everything fall apart again .
In reality , this drama played out for generations .
Fear , as they say , eats the soul .
I don ’ t think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And whereas present-day psychologists have studied it more , we still can ’ t seem to grasp why fear can be so generally destructive in society .
In the fourteenth century , there were no professional psychologists or economists to advise on coping strategies when the plague wiped out loved ones , wrecked many family businesses and created economic upheaval .
I ’ m not sure we are doing any better today .
Here in the twenty-first century , we apparently have bats , not rats , to worry about .
Family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alone Europe , are folding with alacrity — this time , not just because potential customers have cowered behind their front doors , but because governments all over the world have placed all citizens under house arrest , including the well , and severely restricted people ’ s human contact .
The cost of this fear is not just economic , but medical and psychological .
Some of the most widely cited , but brutal , series of scientific experiments of the twentieth century were carried out in the 1960s by a psychologist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ studied a biological or social science should be familiar with them .
Harlow isolated rhesus monkeys in a laboratory environment , away from their mothers and other monkeys .
In their cages were placed two crude monkey dummies made out of wire .
One monkey was made of wire only , and the other was encased in a soft terrycloth “ skin ” pulled over foam cushioning and had a more recognisable monkey-like face .
When given the choice , the monkeys chose to feed from , and stay with , the cloth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also control groups of monkeys who only had access to the wire mother monkeys : these ones became extremely disturbed from the lack of physical contact with a softer mother figure .
Around the time of these experiments , scientific reductionism was a very prevalent paradigm , and B.F. Skinner ’ s school of behaviourism was seeking to build models of behaviour without reference to the higher mind .
Emotions were considered to be far less formative than operant conditioning in the shaping of human and animal behaviour , whereas food and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harlow ’ s experimental results surprised some , for he used them to conclude that animals — and , by dint of that , people — are primarily social beings , and need of the love and company of others .
This included physical proximity to others .
Those behavioural psychologists , surprised by Harlow ’ s results , can not have been familiar with that classic in the history of biology , Darwin ’ s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , which is , in the opinion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work .
In it , he gives a close , observational review of animal emotions as can be read in facial expressions and bodily behaviour — and regardless of whether or not you agree with his evolutionary ideas , Darwin takes these emotions to be both innate and essential to the healthy life of the animal .
But that book has been largely ignored over time , through the gradual promotion of a somewhat distorted version of Darwin ’ s evolutionary theories , and a generally more materialistic view of biology .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are ephemeral , not really worthy of scientific research — and this is what Harlow set out to disprove .
In 2020 , no psychology department would countenance Harlow ’ s kinds of studies on animals ; at least , not openly .
For Harlow ’ s work was cruel , but it validated the work of John Bowlby , a psychoanalyst who wrote about separation anxiety , and influenced a generation of parents to remember that infant animals and humans need to form and keep bonds , or attachments , to develop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had extended the meaning of that bond to include physical contact .
But what about cruel experiments on humans ?
They too still go on .
Indeed , you know it — you are now part of one .
You are a participant in a grand psychology experiment called “ social distancing to flatten the curve ” .
This is how it has unfolded : On Friday , 20 March , the British government announced that because we “ would ” be facing a coronavirus pandemic , the UK could need to endure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called social distancing .
With the population thus pre-warned , on the evening of Monday , 23 March , Prime Minister Boris Johnson placed the nation on partial quarantine , or lockdown , and this meant staying inside as much as possible , always keeping at least six feet away from others , refraining from social activities involving gathering in groups , and refraining from making journeys other than for purposes approved by the government .
Even worse , those 70 or over were to be totally quarantined inside .
Why did the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allege it is to save our lives ( and to save the National Health Service ) .
However , the assumption that social distancing saves lives rests on a flawed understanding not just of human emotion , as we have just glimpsed above , but also of the immune system and the transmission of infectious diseases , and this is what I wish to briefly outline here .
We ’ ll start with a classic study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1997 , entitled “ Social Ties and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This study examined 276 subjects in quarantine to see whether diverse ties to friends , family , work , and community are associated with increased resistance to infection .
The results and conclusion : after the subjects were given nasal droplets containing rhinovirus , those with more social ties were less susceptible to upper respiratory tract illnesses .
That study was broad in scope , but was not a one-off ; it spawned a whole area of study that carries on to this day .
And since this is a well-cited study , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been on the government ’ s radar in helping to prevent the spread of infection ?
Moreover , when you read that people have been prevented from visiting dying relatives , on the putative grounds of helping to keep the Covid–19 virus at bay , just what about the more recent 2015 study that found that physical contact in the form of hugging buffered people from feeling stressed , and made them less susceptible to upper respiratory tract infections and illnesses ?
Nevertheless , if you wanted to hug a person public today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sight of the police , as it would likely be taken as an act of terrorism .
It is true that the above studies — just two of many — were both conducted outside the UK .
However , the most damning scientific paper I have found on social distancing , quarantining and/or isolation was a review of the scientific literature on the topic in general , published in The Lancet in 2019 .
Note , in particular , that it was commissioned as a response to a possible coronavirus quarantine .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social distancing .
And , lo and behold , it was funded by the British government — in the form of Public Health England and the National Institute for Health Research — and the University of East Anglia , and Newcastle University .
That is quite an interesting conclusion in the light of how the NHS has been disrupted by the coronavirus crisis .
We now have temporary emergency hospitals in industrial-scale hangars , which are largely empty , while established hospitals are also largely empty , and where specialist staff have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For a view on this , see my previous article Exercise Cygnus : UK Government Exercise Justifies Covid–19 Lockdown .
The Lancet article finally reasons that it is “ unacceptable to ask people to self-isolate for the benefit of the community ’ s health , when while doing so might be putting their loved ones at risk.
” But in contrast , under this government , relatives of vulnerable people have nevertheless been asked to self-isolate .
Considering immune response itself , some of the reasons why the authors of the Lancet article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and social distancing ( albeit not specifically discussed ) concern the need to keep up the level of beneficial microbes in the body — yes , up .
For the microbes inside our body have a huge influence on both our psychological state and on the balance of hormones we need for optimal functioning .
Actually , this information was not really new even in the twentieth century .
The Lancet authors have indirectly confirmed Louis Pasteur ’ s biggest regret , one voiced back in the nineteenth century .
At the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turned away from his lifelong approach to the eradication of germs , discovering and declaring , “ Le microbe n ’ est rien — le terrain c ’ est tout ” .
In other words , the presence of individual germs means nothing ; what is important is the environment ( they are in ) .
At the time , without electron microscopes , viral infectious diseases had not yet been distinguished from bacterial , fungal , or protozoal ones , and Western understanding of what constitutes adequate public hygiene was unsatisfactory .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ improvements with cleaner water supplies , indoor air quality , and general housing and nutritional standards , which has been a huge help in bringing down active infections .
Yet only in the last twenty years or so has there been a research explosion in what is called the microbiome : research setting out to establish which bacteria , viruses and fungi are both beneficial , and indeed essential , to the functioning of the human body .
Let me put this in another way : we need infections !
And the more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because some 80 % of our immune system can be found inside our gut microbiome .
What matters is that the microbes be in an internal terrain that is balanced , where no single species can overcome the other players on the scene ; an equilibrium similar to a draw in the game of chess .
This is just as Pasteur eventually discovered in his own day .
In fact , we even house more microbes inside us than we have cells , and without a healthy balance of these microbes , disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this explains why some people catch a cold when others with the same exposure don ’ t : one person ’ s unique microbiome could have been badly affected by poor diet , a course of antibiotics , exposure to certain toxins , and/or emotions which cause the release of stress hormones .
In contrast , another ’ s microbiome may have a full and healthy mix of microbes capable of overcoming any newly introduced pathogen , such as a cold virus — which , incidentally is a member of the Coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the government that if we keep our distance from other humans , we are less likely to catch the Covid–19 virus ; thus we will “ flatten the curve ” .
This is supposed to mean that instead of having a huge and sudden surge of Covid–19 cases , as in a bell curve , the epidemic peak will be smaller and more gradual , or flatter , and hence more manageable .
But take your pick of predictive statistical chart ; it really doesn ’ t matter , for — as I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — each of us has a unique immune system tempered by a lifetime of our habits and individual exposures to various drugs and toxins ; thus , without comparability of a study group ’ s internal microbial populations , any policy treating the population as an undifferentiated mass results in unpredictability of immune response .
So the social distancing regulations are not based on science .
Now here we are , in lockdown , in virtual monkey cages .
And we might be able to foresee how we , like Skinner ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the habit of avoiding people .
What ’ s more , old habits die hard ; certainly this is what researchers from Pavlov to contemporary behaviourists , some of whom practice an approach called neurolinguistic programming ( NLP ) , have proven .
But the developing of such habits results — as we have seen from a quick review of the literature — in harm , both to those who commit the sin of social distancing and to those sinned against , such as the relatives dying in hospitals alone .
Even a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So , in this year of 2020 , in this season bereft of human company , we return to Boccacio .
How did you get though a plague in mediaeval times ?
Boccacio ’ s implied answer was that if on your journey you have the seven women — whom , it is thought , Boccacio meant to represent the four cardinal virtues of Prudence , Justice , Temperance , and Fortitude , and the three Pauline axioms of Faith , Hope , and Charity — then the wheel of fortune could turn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century , we have a different kind of plague , but a journey that involves just as testing a challenge to the soul .

When I was around twelve years old, I was introduced to Boccaccio’s Decameron, in a largely forgotten chapter of my school textbook on European history.
The textbook’s author told how in that collection of short stories, Boccaccio described a group of seven women and three men who had fled to Florence during the bubonic plague in the fourteenth century.
Interspersed with bawdy tales of intrigue among travelling merchants and corrupt members of the clergy, we are told of how the plague made parents shun their own children.
Yes, the frightened people sinned and sinned, and they committed a new sin — social distancing. Crazy times.
Avowed Christian people were constantly suspicious of each other, even lovers. Then, once the plague finally passed, people only emerged from quarantine and self-isolation very tentatively and carefully, and continued to social distance, held by the thought that just one rodent that could make everything fall apart again. In reality, this drama played out for generations. Fear, as they say, eats the soul.
I don’t think human nature has changed much since then. And whereas present-day psychologists have studied it more, we still can’t seem to grasp why fear can be so generally destructive in society.
In the fourteenth century, there were no professional psychologists or economists to advise on coping strategies when the plague wiped out loved ones, wrecked many family businesses and created economic upheaval. I’m not sure we are doing any better today.
Here in the twenty-first century, we apparently have bats, not rats, to worry about. Family businesses all over the world, let alone Europe, are folding with alacrity — this time, not just because potential customers have cowered behind their front doors, but because governments all over the world have placed all citizens under house arrest, including the well, and severely restricted people’s human contact. The cost of this fear is not just economic, but medical and psychological.
Some of the most widely cited, but brutal, series of scientific experiments of the twentieth century were carried out in the 1960s by a psychologist called Harry Harlow. Anyone who has studied a biological or social science should be familiar with them.
Harlow isolated rhesus monkeys in a laboratory environment, away from their mothers and other monkeys. In their cages were placed two crude monkey dummies made out of wire. One monkey was made of wire only, and the other was encased in a soft terrycloth “skin” pulled over foam cushioning and had a more recognisable monkey-like face.
When given the choice, the monkeys chose to feed from, and stay with, the cloth “mother” monkey. There were also control groups of monkeys who only had access to the wire mother monkeys: these ones became extremely disturbed from the lack of physical contact with a softer mother figure.
Around the time of these experiments, scientific reductionism was a very prevalent paradigm, and B.F. Skinner’s school of behaviourism was seeking to build models of behaviour without reference to the higher mind. Emotions were considered to be far less formative than operant conditioning in the shaping of human and animal behaviour, whereas food and other material rewards were seen as primal.
Harlow’s experimental results surprised some, for he used them to conclude that animals — and, by dint of that, people — are primarily social beings, and need of the love and company of others. This included physical proximity to others.
Those behavioural psychologists, surprised by Harlow’s results, cannot have been familiar with that classic in the history of biology, Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, which is, in the opinion of this writer, Darwin’s best work.
In it, he gives a close, observational review of animal emotions as can be read in facial expressions and bodily behaviour — and regardless of whether or not you agree with his evolutionary ideas, Darwin takes these emotions to be both innate and essential to the healthy life of the animal. But that book has been largely ignored over time, through the gradual promotion of a somewhat distorted version of Darwin’s evolutionary theories, and a generally more materialistic view of biology. We ended up with a theory whereby emotions are ephemeral, not really worthy of scientific research — and this is what Harlow set out to disprove.
In 2020, no psychology department would countenance Harlow’s kinds of studies on animals; at least, not openly. For Harlow’s work was cruel, but it validated the work of John Bowlby, a psychoanalyst who wrote about separation anxiety, and influenced a generation of parents to remember that infant animals and humans need to form and keep bonds, or attachments, to develop normally, healthily. Again, Harlow had extended the meaning of that bond to include physical contact.
But what about cruel experiments on humans? They too still go on. Indeed, you know it — you are now part of one. You are a participant in a grand psychology experiment called “social distancing to flatten the curve”. This is how it has unfolded:
On Friday, 20 March, the British government announced that because we “would” be facing a coronavirus pandemic, the UK could need to endure up to a year of this thing called social distancing.
With the population thus pre-warned, on the evening of Monday, 23 March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson placed the nation on partial quarantine, or lockdown, and this meant staying inside as much as possible, always keeping at least six feet away from others, refraining from social activities involving gathering in groups, and refraining from making journeys other than for purposes approved by the government.
Even worse, those 70 or over were to be totally quarantined inside.
Why did the government impose this upon us?
They allege it is to save our lives (and to save the National Health Service). However, the assumption that social distancing saves lives rests on a flawed understanding not just of human emotion, as we have just glimpsed above, but also of the immune system and the transmission of infectious diseases, and this is what I wish to briefly outline here.
We’ll start with a classic study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1997, entitled “Social Ties and Susceptibility to the Common Cold”. This study examined 276 subjects in quarantine to see whether diverse ties to friends, family, work, and community are associated with increased resistance to infection. The results and conclusion: after the subjects were given nasal droplets containing rhinovirus, those with more social ties were less susceptible to upper respiratory tract illnesses.
That study was broad in scope, but was not a one-off; it spawned a whole area of study that carries on to this day. And since this is a well-cited study, shouldn’t its results have somehow been on the government’s radar in helping to prevent the spread of infection? Moreover, when you read that people have been prevented from visiting dying relatives, on the putative grounds of helping to keep the Covid–19 virus at bay, just what about the more recent 2015 study that found that physical contact in the form of hugging buffered people from feeling stressed, and made them less susceptible to upper respiratory tract infections and illnesses? Nevertheless, if you wanted to hug a person public today, don’t do it in sight of the police, as it would likely be taken as an act of terrorism.
It is true that the above studies — just two of many — were both conducted outside the UK. However, the most damning scientific paper I have found on social distancing, quarantining and/or isolation was a review of the scientific literature on the topic in general, published in The Lancet in 2019. Note, in particular, that it was commissioned as a response to a possible coronavirus quarantine. It roundly condemned quarantines, social isolation and social distancing. And, lo and behold, it was funded by the British government — in the form of Public Health England and the National Institute for Health Research — and the University of East Anglia, and Newcastle University.
The multi-authored article found that:
the psychological impact of quarantine is wide-ranging, substantial and can be long-lasting, [and that] if the quarantine experience is negative, the results of this review suggest that there can be long-term consequences that affect not just the people quarantined but also the health-care system that administered the quarantine and the politicians and the public health officials who mandated it.
That is quite an interesting conclusion in the light of how the NHS has been disrupted by the coronavirus crisis. We now have temporary emergency hospitals in industrial-scale hangars, which are largely empty, while established hospitals are also largely empty, and where specialist staff have been redeployed to work in unfamiliar areas. For a view on this, see my previous article Exercise Cygnus: UK Government Exercise Justifies Covid–19 Lockdown.
The Lancet article finally reasons that it is “unacceptable to ask people to self-isolate for the benefit of the community’s health, when while doing so might be putting their loved ones at risk.” But in contrast, under this government, relatives of vulnerable people have nevertheless been asked to self-isolate.
Considering immune response itself, some of the reasons why the authors of the Lancet article warn against quarantines, so-called self-isolation, and social distancing (albeit not specifically discussed) concern the need to keep up the level of beneficial microbes in the body — yes, up. For the microbes inside our body have a huge influence on both our psychological state and on the balance of hormones we need for optimal functioning.
Actually, this information was not really new even in the twentieth century. The Lancet authors have indirectly confirmed Louis Pasteur’s biggest regret, one voiced back in the nineteenth century. At the end of a now well-publicised career, Pasteur turned away from his lifelong approach to the eradication of germs, discovering and declaring, “Le microbe n’est rien — le terrain c’est tout”. In other words, the presence of individual germs means nothing; what is important is the environment (they are in). At the time, without electron microscopes, viral infectious diseases had not yet been distinguished from bacterial, fungal, or protozoal ones, and Western understanding of what constitutes adequate public hygiene was unsatisfactory.
Today, however, we have made improvements with cleaner water supplies, indoor air quality, and general housing and nutritional standards, which has been a huge help in bringing down active infections. Yet only in the last twenty years or so has there been a research explosion in what is called the microbiome: research setting out to establish which bacteria, viruses and fungi are both beneficial, and indeed essential, to the functioning of the human body. Let me put this in another way: we need infections! And the more types of microbes, the merrier, because some 80% of our immune system can be found inside our gut microbiome. What matters is that the microbes be in an internal terrain that is balanced, where no single species can overcome the other players on the scene; an equilibrium similar to a draw in the game of chess. This is just as Pasteur eventually discovered in his own day.
In fact, we even house more microbes inside us than we have cells, and without a healthy balance of these microbes, disease eventually follows. To a large extent, this explains why some people catch a cold when others with the same exposure don’t: one person’s unique microbiome could have been badly affected by poor diet, a course of antibiotics, exposure to certain toxins, and/or emotions which cause the release of stress hormones. In contrast, another’s microbiome may have a full and healthy mix of microbes capable of overcoming any newly introduced pathogen, such as a cold virus — which, incidentally is a member of the Coronavirus group.
We have been told by the government that if we keep our distance from other humans, we are less likely to catch the Covid–19 virus; thus we will “flatten the curve”. This is supposed to mean that instead of having a huge and sudden surge of Covid–19 cases, as in a bell curve, the epidemic peak will be smaller and more gradual, or flatter, and hence more manageable. But take your pick of predictive statistical chart; it really doesn’t matter, for — as I set out above regarding the microbiome above — each of us has a unique immune system tempered by a lifetime of our habits and individual exposures to various drugs and toxins; thus, without comparability of a study group’s internal microbial populations, any policy treating the population as an undifferentiated mass results in unpredictability of immune response. So the social distancing regulations are not based on science.
Now here we are, in lockdown, in virtual monkey cages. And we might be able to foresee how we, like Skinner’s rats, are being conditioned to develop the habit of avoiding people. What’s more, old habits die hard; certainly this is what researchers from Pavlov to contemporary behaviourists, some of whom practice an approach called neurolinguistic programming (NLP), have proven. But the developing of such habits results — as we have seen from a quick review of the literature — in harm, both to those who commit the sin of social distancing and to those sinned against, such as the relatives dying in hospitals alone. Even a video link is just too …distant.
So, in this year of 2020, in this season bereft of human company, we return to Boccacio. How did you get though a plague in mediaeval times? Boccacio’s implied answer was that if on your journey you have the seven women — whom, it is thought, Boccacio meant to represent the four cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude, and the three Pauline axioms of Faith, Hope, and Charity — then the wheel of fortune could turn in your favour. In the twenty-first century, we have a different kind of plague, but a journey that involves just as testing a challenge to the soul.


ukcolumn--2020-05-03--Behavioural Insights: The Second Team Leading the UK Government’s Covid-19 Response

At the beginning of this millennium , a range of psychological tools was applied simultaneously on the British public to change the behaviour of smokers , drinkers and the obese .
Today , we are all constantly being ‘ nudged ’ to make decisions which favour the preferred options set by global policy makers .
But what is their ultimate objective , and which actors are working behind the scenes to change citizen behaviour ?
There are two main areas of scientific ‘ expertise ’ which the Johnson régime relies upon to decide how it will deal with the Covid–19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the team at Imperial College led by Neil Ferguson , which claims to be able to use its computer models to forecast the spread and impact of the disease .
The second is the army of behavioural ‘ scientists ’ who have been ‘ nudging ’ us at every opportunity into making decisions which favour the preferred options set by global policy makers .
In 2011 , the UK Column published an exclusive report , British Cabinet Office Collaborates With French Brainwashing Guru To Change The Way We Think , which warned that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ nudged ’ into politically acceptable ‘ social norms ' including healthy eating , voluntary work and tax-gathering .
During the current ‘ pandemic ’ , the nudging of the public has gone into overdrive , fully facilitated by the mainstream press and media .
Traditional methods ( ‘ tools ’ or ‘ stimuli ’ ) employed to change public behaviour are legislation , regulation , taxation and education .
More recently , however , we have seen how the application of numerous techniques of nudge theory ( behavioural economics and psychology ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how governments and the population at large make decisions .
The purpose of these so-called nudges is to 'encourage people to make better choices for themselves and society.
’ One such ‘ better choice ’ concerns the highly controversial roll-out of ‘ smart ’ energy meters .
The thinking behind this move is that ‘ households with smart meters will be able to receive highly personalised behavioural feedback , which is deliverable through a range of new technology platforms , such as a web portal , email , mobile applications and social media.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a joint publication of the Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team , the Department of Energy & Climate Change , and the Department for Communities and Local Government — presents insights which ‘ complement the Government ’ s objective to reduce carbon emissions across all sectors.
’ Energy consumers are therefore being deliberately misled .
Energy companies are claiming that a ‘ smart ’ meter would mean an end to estimated bills and that consumers also benefit by instantly being able to see how much energy they have used in pounds and pence .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Energy Use also point out that ‘ in the context of domestic energy use , providing consumers with feedback on how their energy use compares with similar households in their neighbourhood has been shown to reduce energy consumption in higher-than-average users.
’ A further document by the Department of Energy and Climate Change highlights the fact that when ‘ smart ’ meters are installed , the energy providers can switch off people 's energy supplies if they deem the usage too high or if the grid is on a high load , only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the user is more conservative with their energy consumption .
Smart Energy GB claims itself to be the ‘ voice of the smart meter roll-out.
’ The Smart Energy GB 2016 publication A smart route to change : The application of behavioural science in supporting Great Britain 's smart meter roll-out and changing the way we use energy for the better contains two chapters of relevance to this article .
Chapter three covers ‘ Behavioural Change Models and the smart meter rollout ’ , whilst chapter four covers the ‘ The SMART Approach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more about ‘ Mindspace ’ below .
The authors of A Smart Route to Change thanked the Behavioural Insights Team UK for their contribution .
The report ’ s foreword evidences that Maya Shankar , Senior Advisor for Social and Behavioural Sciences to President Barack Obama , spoke at an event hosted by Smart Energy GB .
Shankar holds a PhD from Oxford , earned while on a Rhodes Scholarship , and a BA from Yale in cognitive science .
We will examine her role in the global spread of the application of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own website , the Behavioural Insights Team board is chaired by Rob Taylor .
Also on the board is the ( British Government ) Cabinet Office representative Janet Baker , and the NESTA representative ( see below for more on that organisation ) is Nathan Elstub .
David Halpern is Chief Executive , and Simon Ruda , Director of Home Affairs and International Programmes , also sits on the board .
Dr. David Halpern is co-author of the 96-page report MINDSPACE : Influencing behaviour through public policy , published by the Cabinet Office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nudging ’ is described in that key document as ‘ cues [ that ] act on people without their conscious knowledge : indeed , people actively resist the suggestion that their actions are being influenced.
’ The academic advisory panel of the Behavioural Insights Team includes Daniel Goldstein , Richard Thaler , Nick Chater , Peter John , Peter Tufano , Simon Burgess , Theresa Marteau and Gus O ’ Donnell .
Daniel Goldstein is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and describes himself as ‘ an American cognitive psychologist known for the specification @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bounded rationality in the field of judgment and decision making.
’ Richard Thayler is currently Professor of Behavioural Science and Economics at the Chicago Booth School of Business .
He is the co-author of Nudge : Improving Decisions on Health , Wealth , and Happiness , published by Yale University Press in 2008 .
Thaler ’ s website links to the blog nudges.org , which is the companion to his 2008 publication .
According to the blog itself , it contains examples of ‘ nudging , choice architecture , libertarian paternalism , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ read about in standard economics books . '
Thayler ’ s examples of a dozen mini-nudges provide a flavour of his mindset .
Between November 2010 and September 2013 , Thaler was listed as a member of the advisory council at Demos , the UK-based Marxist think-tank .
Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School , and , Peter John is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at University College London .
Peter Tufano is Dean of Oxford University ’ s Said Business School , which CPExposed revealed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charity ’ Common Purpose , and which in turn had links with a Paris business school specialising in , amongst other things , neurolinguistic ( NLP ) training for business leaders .
Simon Burgess is Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol .
Theresa Marteau is ‘ Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit in the University of Cambridge Department of Public Health and Primary Care , and Fellow and Director of Studies in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at Christ 's College , Cambridge.
’ The main thrust of her research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of interventions to change behaviour ( principally diet , physical activity , tobacco and alcohol consumption ) .
’ She is the author of Towards environmentally sustainable human behaviour : targeting non-conscious and conscious processes for effective and acceptable policies and a contributing author to Judging nudging : can nudging improve population health ?
, published in the British Medical Journal in 2011 .
Further examples of her published research papers can be consulted here .
Gus O ’ Donnell ( ‘ there is only one GOD ’ ) was Cabinet Secretary and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1st September 2005 and 31st December 2011 .
Since 2010 , the Behavioural Insights Team appears to be have become embedded in various government departments , the National Health Service ( NHS ) , various British police forces , The Pensions Regulator ( TPR ) , the Electoral Commission , and its influence also extends to many British local authorities .
As our first example , we can reveal that Dr Rupert Gill is Head of Behavioural Insights at HM Revenue & Customs ( the British tax authority ) , and is also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ second example , we discovered that Simon Buda of the Behavioural Insights team 'is responsible for BIT ’ s [ the Behavioural Insight Team ’ s ] work with the Home Office , Ministry of Justice , Ministry of Defence , Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DfID [ the Department for International Development ] , as well as multiple police forces and other government agencies.
’ In 2014 , it was announced by Francis Maude , Minister for the Cabinet Office , that ‘ the government ’ s Behavioural Insights Team — also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had ] teamed up with Nesta , the UK ’ s innovation foundation , to create a new mutual joint venture.
’ It was reported that Maude had stated that ‘ as a mutual joint venture , the new company will be able to grow its business and export services across the globe.
’ Francis Maude has also been discovered speaking in the Common Purpose video A question of leadership : Crisis , communication and lessons from 2009 .
NESTA describes itself as ‘ an innovation foundation which works … in partnership with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charities.
’ Its Chief Executive since 2011 has been Geoff Mulgan .
Mulgan , a former director of Marxism Today , was previously engaged as director of the Government 's Strategy Unit and head of policy in the Prime Minister ’ s Office .
Whilst at the Government ’ s Strategy Unit , he was co-author with David Halpern ( now CEO of the Behavioural Insights Team ) , and others , of the 2004 Cabinet Office discussion document Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour : the state of knowledge and its implications for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ‘ the public have a central role to play in improving outcomes in public services and achieving environmental goals.
’ Mulgan has been Chief Executive of the Young Foundation , and director of the think-tank Demos ( which he founded alongside Julia Middleton , founder and former Chief Executive of Common Purpose ) .
Since 2016 , he has been acting as co-chair of a World Economic Forum group looking at innovation and entrepreneurship in the fourth industrial revolution .
NESTA is led by a 12-strong board of trustees .
Chairman of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His early career was spent at the UK Treasury as private secretary to three chancellors ( British treasury secretaries ) .
Between 2001 and 2005 , he was Permanent Secretary ( chief civil servant ) at the Home Office , and he was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England between 2006 and 2009 .
David Pitt-Watson is Treasurer of the major British charity Oxfam , and a board member of the International Corporate Governance Network .
He is also ‘ Executive Fellow at London Business School , and Chair of the UN @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Linnett is Executive Vice Chairman at Rothschild and ‘ has a strong personal interest in the `` green '' debate , seeking to influence discussion on auctioning emissions and chairing Rothschild ’ s Environment Committee.
’ Moira Wallace is a career civil servant who is now Provost of Oriel College , Oxford , a position she has held since 2013 .
In 2008 , she was appointed Permanent Secretary at the newly-formed Department of Energy and Climate Change , which she led for four years .
She has her own web page on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a partnership between between leadership development organisation Common Purpose and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh ’ s Commonwealth Study Conferences ( UK Fund ) .
UK Column researchers also discovered Moira Wallace being quoted on a page on the Common Purpose website Leadership programmes , University partners .
Another link between NESTA and Common Purpose is provided by reference to the LinkedIn profile of Olly Arber , formerly Director of Digital at NESTA .
A visit to the Common Purpose website reveals Arber quoted as saying : The Behavioural Insights Team Update @ @ @ @ @ @ @ European Commission ’ s Science & Knowledge Service ran a programme called Behavioural Insights Applied to Policy for EU civil servants at its Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels in February 2016 .
Owain Service , formerly of the Behavioural Insights Team , was in attendance .
Activities of the Joint Research Centre ( JRC ) include monitoring the application of behavioural insights in European countries and organising workshops to connect practitioners in the field .
The Behavioural Insights Applied to Policy European Report 2016 examines numerous ‘ policy initiatives across 32 European countries either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( BIs ) .
’ The EU Science Hub website provides links to country overviews , including one for the UK .
The UK overview points out that ‘ the BIT has also worked with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.
’ Examples of the spread of Behavioural Insights via the networking approach across Europe is found by referring to the following websites : The Organisation for European Economic Cooperation ( OEEC ) was established in 1948 to run the US-financed Marshall Plan .
OEEC ’ s founding European member @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States and signed the new OECD Convention on 14 December 1960 .
That convention entered into force on 30th September 1951 , when the OECD was officially born .
The Paris-based OECD now has 39 member countries that account for 80 % of world trade and investment .
The OECD works with ‘ governments to understand what drives economic , social and environmental change , and , promotes policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
’ It is now typically thought of as the club @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economies and a platform for exchange of social policies .
The OECD claims that since 2013 , it has been at the forefront of supporting public institutions who are ‘ applying behavioural insights to improving public policy.
’ It was no surprise for us to learn , then , that the OECD supports the United Nations in ensuring the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development .
This is evidenced by the OECD ’ s 12-page document Better Policies for 2030 : an OECD Action Plan on the Sustainable Development Goals .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Policy : Lessons from Around the World contains reference to ‘ over 100 case studies showing the application of behavioural insights to public policy.
’ The progamme of the OECD ’ s Behavioural Insights and New Approaches to Policy Design workshop , held in Paris on 23rd January 2014 , makes interesting reading .
The Introduction to Behavioural Insights and New Policy tools there was given by David Halpern , Chief Executive of the UK ’ s Behavioural Insights Team .
Owain Service , former Managing Director of the Behavioural Insights Team , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mainstreaming `` New '' Thinking into Institutions , while Session 7 , From Nudging to the Next Frontiers , was jointly facilitated by Professor Richard Thayler , Chicago Booth School of Business , via video link .
Thayler , it will be recalled , is an advisory panel member of the Behavioural Insights Team .
The Behavioural Exchange series of conferences are events that have taken place in Sydney , London , Singapore , and Harvard University in the United States .
For example , Behaviour Exchange Sydney 2014 was ‘ the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insights conference.
’ Plenary speakers included David Halpern and Professor Richard Thayler .
Also present was Maya Shankar , the former Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy .
Evidence contained in the Nudging in Government video Behaviour Exchange 2014 demonstrates that Maya Shankar and David Halpern were already familiar with each other at that time .
In the spring of 2014 Shankar was the keynote speaker at the United Nations Psychology Day , an event focused on how psychological science can inform global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Obama sign Executive Order 13707 — Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People , which institutionalised the US Government ’ s Social and Behavioral Sciences Team ( SBST ) and codified the practice of applying behavioural science insights to federal policy .
In February 2017 , Maya Shankar became Google ’ s first Head of Behavioural Insights .
Dr. Maya Shankar and Dr. Lori Foster , Behavioural Science Advisors to the United Nations , are the authors of Behavioural Insights at the United Nations , Achieving Agenda 2030 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ BEHAVE 2020 is the 6th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency .
It is to be held on 21–23 October 2020 at the UN City Copenhagen office .
It is being run by the United Nations Environment Programme , the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs , and the Technical University of Denmark .
The main topics for discussion there include : Behavioural insights for effective climate change mitigation and Users ’ behaviour in transport and mobility .
The Copenhagen venue serves as the global thematic hub for energy efficiency for the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ All ( SEforALL ) initiative .
These , then , are the people driving the government ’ s response to Covid-19 , alongside the more often discussed ‘ A-Team ’ at Imperial College .
It should perhaps come as no surprise that the message from the UK Government for several weeks now has been that the behaviour of the public is key to any decisions regarding the lifting of the so-called lockdown .
What might be more surprising to many is that the types of behavioural change being demanded of us by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a global ‘ pandemic ’ fit so nicely with the aims and objectives of those pushing for global change via the Millennium Development Goals .

At the beginning of this millennium, a range of psychological tools was applied simultaneously on the British public to change the behaviour of smokers, drinkers and the obese. Today, we are all constantly being ‘nudged’ to make decisions which favour the preferred options set by global policy makers. But what is their ultimate objective, and which actors are working behind the scenes to change citizen behaviour?
There are two main areas of scientific ‘expertise’ which the Johnson régime relies upon to decide how it will deal with the Covid–19 ‘pandemic’. The first is the team at Imperial College led by Neil Ferguson, which claims to be able to use its computer models to forecast the spread and impact of the disease. The second is the army of behavioural ‘scientists’ who have been ‘nudging’ us at every opportunity into making decisions which favour the preferred options set by global policy makers.
In 2011, the UK Column published an exclusive report, British Cabinet Office Collaborates With French Brainwashing Guru To Change The Way We Think, which warned that the public is to be reframed or ‘nudged’ into politically acceptable ‘social norms' including healthy eating, voluntary work and tax-gathering. During the current ‘pandemic’, the nudging of the public has gone into overdrive, fully facilitated by the mainstream press and media.
What are behavioural insights?
Traditional methods (‘tools’ or ‘stimuli’) employed to change public behaviour are legislation, regulation, taxation and education.
More recently, however, we have seen how the application of numerous techniques of nudge theory (behavioural economics and psychology) have been used in order to modify how governments and the population at large make decisions. The purpose of these so-called nudges is to 'encourage people to make better choices for themselves and society.’
One such ‘better choice’ concerns the highly controversial roll-out of ‘smart’ energy meters. The thinking behind this move is that ‘households with smart meters will be able to receive highly personalised behavioural feedback, which is deliverable through a range of new technology platforms, such as a web portal, email, mobile applications and social media.’
Behaviour Change and Energy Use — a joint publication of the Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team, the Department of Energy & Climate Change, and the Department for Communities and Local Government — presents insights which ‘complement the Government’s objective to reduce carbon emissions across all sectors.’
Energy consumers are therefore being deliberately misled. Energy companies are claiming that a ‘smart’ meter would mean an end to estimated bills and that consumers also benefit by instantly being able to see how much energy they have used in pounds and pence.
But the authors of Behaviour Change and Energy Use also point out that ‘in the context of domestic energy use, providing consumers with feedback on how their energy use compares with similar households in their neighbourhood has been shown to reduce energy consumption in higher-than-average users.’
A further document by the Department of Energy and Climate Change highlights the fact that when ‘smart’ meters are installed, the energy providers can switch off people's energy supplies if they deem the usage too high or if the grid is on a high load, only to be restored when usage drops or the user is more conservative with their energy consumption.
Smart Energy GB claims itself to be the ‘voice of the smart meter roll-out.’ The Smart Energy GB 2016 publication A smart route to change: The application of behavioural science in supporting Great Britain's smart meter roll-out and changing the way we use energy for the better contains two chapters of relevance to this article. Chapter three covers ‘Behavioural Change Models and the smart meter rollout’, whilst chapter four covers the ‘The SMART Approach to applying MINDSPACE.’ We will learn more about ‘Mindspace’ below.
The authors of A Smart Route to Change thanked the Behavioural Insights Team UK for their contribution.
The report’s foreword evidences that Maya Shankar, Senior Advisor for Social and Behavioural Sciences to President Barack Obama, spoke at an event hosted by Smart Energy GB.
Shankar holds a PhD from Oxford, earned while on a Rhodes Scholarship, and a BA from Yale in cognitive science. We will examine her role in the global spread of the application of behavioural insights later.
Behavioural Insights Team — People
According to its own website, the Behavioural Insights Team board is chaired by Rob Taylor. Also on the board is the (British Government) Cabinet Office representative Janet Baker, and the NESTA representative (see below for more on that organisation) is Nathan Elstub. David Halpern is Chief Executive, and Simon Ruda, Director of Home Affairs and International Programmes, also sits on the board.
Dr. David Halpern is co-author of the 96-page report MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy, published by the Cabinet Office and the Institute for Government. ‘Nudging’ is described in that key document as ‘cues [that] act on people without their conscious knowledge: indeed, people actively resist the suggestion that their actions are being influenced.’
The academic advisory panel of the Behavioural Insights Team includes Daniel Goldstein, Richard Thaler, Nick Chater, Peter John, Peter Tufano, Simon Burgess, Theresa Marteau and Gus O’Donnell.
Daniel Goldstein is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and describes himself as ‘an American cognitive psychologist known for the specification and testing of heuristics and models of bounded rationality in the field of judgment and decision making.’
Richard Thayler is currently Professor of Behavioural Science and Economics at the Chicago Booth School of Business. He is the co-author of Nudge: Improving Decisions on Health, Wealth, and Happiness, published by Yale University Press in 2008.
Thaler’s website links to the blog nudges.org, which is the companion to his 2008 publication. According to the blog itself, it contains examples of ‘nudging, choice architecture, libertarian paternalism, and many other terms you won’t read about in standard economics books.' Thayler’s examples of a dozen mini-nudges provide a flavour of his mindset. Between November 2010 and September 2013, Thaler was listed as a member of the advisory council at Demos, the UK-based Marxist think-tank.
Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, and, Peter John is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at University College London.
Peter Tufano is Dean of Oxford University’s Said Business School, which CPExposed revealed as having links to leadership training ‘charity’ Common Purpose, and which in turn had links with a Paris business school specialising in, amongst other things, neurolinguistic (NLP) training for business leaders.
Simon Burgess is Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol.
Theresa Marteau is ‘Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit in the University of Cambridge Department of Public Health and Primary Care, and Fellow and Director of Studies in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge.’
The main thrust of her research focuses on the ‘development and evaluation of interventions to change behaviour (principally diet, physical activity, tobacco and alcohol consumption).’
She is the author of Towards environmentally sustainable human behaviour: targeting non-conscious and conscious processes for effective and acceptable policies and a contributing author to Judging nudging: can nudging improve population health?, published in the British Medical Journal in 2011. Further examples of her published research papers can be consulted here.
Gus O’Donnell (‘there is only one GOD’) was Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service between 1st September 2005 and 31st December 2011.
Since 2010, the Behavioural Insights Team appears to be have become embedded in various government departments, the National Health Service (NHS), various British police forces, The Pensions Regulator (TPR), the Electoral Commission, and its influence also extends to many British local authorities.
As our first example, we can reveal that Dr Rupert Gill is Head of Behavioural Insights at HM Revenue & Customs (the British tax authority), and is also a Common Purpose Leader. In our second example, we discovered that Simon Buda of the Behavioural Insights team 'is responsible for BIT’s [the Behavioural Insight Team’s] work with the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DfID [the Department for International Development], as well as multiple police forces and other government agencies.’
In 2014, it was announced by Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, that ‘the government’s Behavioural Insights Team — also known as the Nudge Unit — [had] teamed up with Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, to create a new mutual joint venture.’ It was reported that Maude had stated that ‘as a mutual joint venture, the new company will be able to grow its business and export services across the globe.’ Francis Maude has also been discovered speaking in the Common Purpose video A question of leadership: Crisis, communication and lessons from 2009.
NESTA
NESTA describes itself as ‘an innovation foundation which works … in partnership with others, including governments, businesses and charities.’
Its Chief Executive since 2011 has been Geoff Mulgan.
Mulgan, a former director of Marxism Today, was previously engaged as director of the Government's Strategy Unit and head of policy in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Whilst at the Government’s Strategy Unit, he was co-author with David Halpern (now CEO of the Behavioural Insights Team), and others, of the 2004 Cabinet Office discussion document Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour: the state of knowledge and its implications for public policy, which concluded by stating that ‘the public have a central role to play in improving outcomes in public services and achieving environmental goals.’
Mulgan has been Chief Executive of the Young Foundation, and director of the think-tank Demos (which he founded alongside Julia Middleton, founder and former Chief Executive of Common Purpose). Since 2016, he has been acting as co-chair of a World Economic Forum group looking at innovation and entrepreneurship in the fourth industrial revolution.
NESTA is led by a 12-strong board of trustees. Chairman of the board is Sir John Gieve. His early career was spent at the UK Treasury as private secretary to three chancellors (British treasury secretaries). Between 2001 and 2005, he was Permanent Secretary (chief civil servant) at the Home Office, and he was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England between 2006 and 2009.
David Pitt-Watson is Treasurer of the major British charity Oxfam, and a board member of the International Corporate Governance Network. He is also ‘Executive Fellow at London Business School, and Chair of the UN Environment Programme's Finance Initiative.’
Simon Linnett is Executive Vice Chairman at Rothschild and ‘has a strong personal interest in the "green" debate, seeking to influence discussion on auctioning emissions and chairing Rothschild’s Environment Committee.’
Moira Wallace is a career civil servant who is now Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, a position she has held since 2013. In 2008, she was appointed Permanent Secretary at the newly-formed Department of Energy and Climate Change, which she led for four years. She has her own web page on the CSC Leaders website.
CSC Leaders is a partnership between between leadership development organisation Common Purpose and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences (UK Fund). UK Column researchers also discovered Moira Wallace being quoted on a page on the Common Purpose website Leadership programmes, University partners.
Another link between NESTA and Common Purpose is provided by reference to the LinkedIn profile of Olly Arber, formerly Director of Digital at NESTA. A visit to the Common Purpose website reveals Arber quoted as saying:
The course … gave me the confidence to step outside my normal ring fence and bring together wider groups to help create change. (Leading Beyond Authority)
The Behavioural Insights Team Update Report 2013–2015 tells us that:
International organisations (including the European Commission, the OECD, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) are setting up BIT-style [Behavioural Insight Team] functions or undertaking behavioural insights projects, drawing on the growing body of BIT and associated work, together with new findings from elsewhere.
Behavioural Insights at the European Commission
The European Commission’s Science & Knowledge Service ran a programme called Behavioural Insights Applied to Policy for EU civil servants at its Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels in February 2016. Owain Service, formerly of the Behavioural Insights Team, was in attendance.
Activities of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) include monitoring the application of behavioural insights in European countries and organising workshops to connect practitioners in the field. The Behavioural Insights Applied to Policy European Report 2016 examines numerous ‘policy initiatives across 32 European countries either implicitly or explicitly informed by behavioural insights (BIs).’
The EU Science Hub website provides links to country overviews, including one for the UK. The UK overview points out that ‘the BIT has also worked with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.’ Examples of the spread of Behavioural Insights via the networking approach across Europe is found by referring to the following websites:
The OECD and Behavioural Insights
The Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was established in 1948 to run the US-financed Marshall Plan. OEEC’s founding European member states were joined by Canada and the United States and signed the new OECD Convention on 14 December 1960. That convention entered into force on 30th September 1951, when the OECD was officially born.
The Paris-based OECD now has 39 member countries that account for 80% of world trade and investment. The OECD works with ‘governments to understand what drives economic, social and environmental change, and, promotes policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.’ It is now typically thought of as the club of the world’s most developed economies and a platform for exchange of social policies.
The OECD claims that since 2013, it has been at the forefront of supporting public institutions who are ‘applying behavioural insights to improving public policy.’
It was no surprise for us to learn, then, that the OECD supports the United Nations in ensuring the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This is evidenced by the OECD’s 12-page document Better Policies for 2030: an OECD Action Plan on the Sustainable Development Goals.
The OECD publication Behavioural Insights and Public Policy: Lessons from Around the World contains reference to ‘over 100 case studies showing the application of behavioural insights to public policy.’
The progamme of the OECD’s Behavioural Insights and New Approaches to Policy Design workshop, held in Paris on 23rd January 2014, makes interesting reading. The Introduction to Behavioural Insights and New Policy tools there was given by David Halpern, Chief Executive of the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team.
Owain Service, former Managing Director of the Behavioural Insights Team, played a part in Session 2, Mainstreaming "New" Thinking into Institutions, while Session 7, From Nudging to the Next Frontiers, was jointly facilitated by Professor Richard Thayler, Chicago Booth School of Business, via video link. Thayler, it will be recalled, is an advisory panel member of the Behavioural Insights Team.
Spreading Behavioural Insights Worldwide
The Behavioural Exchange series of conferences are events that have taken place in Sydney, London, Singapore, and Harvard University in the United States.
For example, Behaviour Exchange Sydney 2014 was ‘the world’s first global public policy behavioural insights conference.’ Plenary speakers included David Halpern and Professor Richard Thayler. Also present was Maya Shankar, the former Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Evidence contained in the Nudging in Government video Behaviour Exchange 2014 demonstrates that Maya Shankar and David Halpern were already familiar with each other at that time.
In the spring of 2014 Shankar was the keynote speaker at the United Nations Psychology Day, an event focused on how psychological science can inform global sustainable development. September 2015 saw former President Obama sign Executive Order 13707 — Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People, which institutionalised the US Government’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) and codified the practice of applying behavioural science insights to federal policy. In February 2017, Maya Shankar became Google’s first Head of Behavioural Insights.
Dr. Maya Shankar and Dr. Lori Foster, Behavioural Science Advisors to the United Nations, are the authors of Behavioural Insights at the United Nations, Achieving Agenda 2030.
This document tells its readers that:
In January 2016, Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon engaged the first-ever Behavioural Science Advisor to the United Nations, as a way of bringing cutting-edge behavioural science insights to the forefront of policy and programming discussions across the UN. [Since then,] the UN Secretariat and the UNDP Innovation Facility have launched a small team of behavioural science experts — the UN Behavioural Initiative (UNBI).’
BEHAVE 2020 is the 6th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency. It is to be held on 21–23 October 2020 at the UN City Copenhagen office.
It is being run by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Technical University of Denmark. The main topics for discussion there include: Behavioural insights for effective climate change mitigation and Users’ behaviour in transport and mobility. The Copenhagen venue serves as the global thematic hub for energy efficiency for the United Nations Secretary General's Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) initiative.
Conclusion
These, then, are the people driving the government’s response to Covid-19, alongside the more often discussed ‘A-Team’ at Imperial College.
It should perhaps come as no surprise that the message from the UK Government for several weeks now has been that the behaviour of the public is key to any decisions regarding the lifting of the so-called lockdown.
What might be more surprising to many is that the types of behavioural change being demanded of us by the Behavioural Insights ‘experts’ in response to a global ‘pandemic’ fit so nicely with the aims and objectives of those pushing for global change via the Millennium Development Goals.


ukcolumn--2020-05-04--UK Column News - 4th May 2020

UK Column News - 4th May 2020

Brian Gerrish , Mike Robinson and David Scott with today 's UK Column News , bringing you the latest Coronavirus updates .
START – Another day in lock up : CoronaVirus statistics update CoronaVirus international vaccine pledging conference begins today Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is taking part… Michael Gove : lockdown can not end until people are vaccinated Delusional : only a vaccine can save us… ?
UK Column article : who controls the British government response to COVID-19… ?
UK government secret plan to transform government , civil service & takeover businesses Doctor ’ s surgeries to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is key : many public sector and civil service jobs are to go Scotland has been the testing ground…now everyone is going to share it A communist future : government to hold partial ownership in everything Easing lockdown : scaling up our ( CV ) testing programmes Population surveillance : ‘ essential to understand the rate of infection… ’ Contact tracing App offered to Isle of Wight residents as test bed Bill Gates : when Bill met Teflon Tony , seeds of a grandiose scheme were sown Is NHS data being harvested by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we follow the rules , the sooner we ’ ll be reunited… The Fusion Doctrine : 20,000 British military now heavily involved in CoronaVirus All of this is being done with no accountability or oversight Also , complete silence from MainStream Media on these matters 27:22 – Alternative View 11 livestream tickets available via UK Column website Economy and finance : money printing levelling off… ?
$ 6.66 trillion is the number The Hill : big banks are growing due to CoronaVirus – that ’ s an ominous sign US ‘ Federal Reserve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not helping the real economy Eurozone manufacturing has fallen further than ever before Worldwide energy demand has fallen sharply since CoronaVirus scare House prices to crash next… ?
38:34 – Ask Your Question : you could have it answered at the next CV press conference BBC : new ‘ stirring up ’ hate crime legislation put forward – ‘ hate ’ not defined Spiked : the SNP ’ s war on free speech National Review : Scotland swaps one blasphemy law for another People never to be allowed to speak their mind again… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Machine under intensive threat 46:34 – The Health Protection ( CoronaVirus , Restrictions ) ( England ) regulations 2020 CV crisis being used for many other purposes behind the scenes and out of public view 50:00 – Sarah Vine ( Michael Gove ’ s wife ) Tweets photo of one of David Irving ’ s books Daddy , what did YOU do when the state took all our freedom and rights away… ?

Brian Gerrish, Mike Robinson and David Scott with today's UK Column News, bringing you the latest Coronavirus updates.
START – Another day in lock up: CoronaVirus statistics update
CoronaVirus international vaccine pledging conference begins today
Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is taking part…
Michael Gove: lockdown cannot end until people are vaccinated
Delusional: only a vaccine can save us…?
UK Column article: who controls the British government response to COVID-19…?
UK government secret plan to transform government, civil service & takeover businesses
Doctor’s surgeries to be nationalised…society to be reinvented…?
Expanding AI is key: many public sector and civil service jobs are to go
Scotland has been the testing ground…now everyone is going to share it
A communist future: government to hold partial ownership in everything
Easing lockdown: scaling up our (CV) testing programmes
Population surveillance: ‘essential to understand the rate of infection…’
Contact tracing App offered to Isle of Wight residents as test bed
Bill Gates: when Bill met Teflon Tony, seeds of a grandiose scheme were sown
Is NHS data being harvested by Israel…?
HM government: the more we follow the rules, the sooner we’ll be reunited…
The Fusion Doctrine: 20,000 British military now heavily involved in CoronaVirus
All of this is being done with no accountability or oversight
Also, complete silence from MainStream Media on these matters
27:22 – Alternative View 11 livestream tickets available via UK Column website
Economy and finance: money printing levelling off…? $6.66 trillion is the number
The Hill: big banks are growing due to CoronaVirus – that’s an ominous sign
US ‘Federal Reserve’ now propping up the markets but not helping the real economy
Eurozone manufacturing has fallen further than ever before
Worldwide energy demand has fallen sharply since CoronaVirus scare
House prices to crash next…?
38:34 – Ask Your Question: you could have it answered at the next CV press conference
BBC: new ‘stirring up’ hate crime legislation put forward – ‘hate’ not defined
Spiked: the SNP’s war on free speech
National Review: Scotland swaps one blasphemy law for another
People never to be allowed to speak their mind again…
44:52 – The memory hole: Wayback Machine under intensive threat
46:34 – The Health Protection (CoronaVirus, Restrictions) (England) regulations 2020
CV crisis being used for many other purposes behind the scenes and out of public view
50:00 – Sarah Vine (Michael Gove’s wife) Tweets photo of one of David Irving’s books
Daddy, what did YOU do when the state took all our freedom and rights away…?


ukcolumn--2020-05-06--UK Column News - 6th May 2020

UK Column News - 6th May 2020

Brian Gerrish , Mike Robinson and Alex Thomson with today 's UK Column News , bringing you the latest Coronavirus updates .
START - 43rd day of house arrest in the UK…CoronaVirus statistics update Government ‘ scientist ’ Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules… The Times tries to defend him ignoring his own advice : does he believe his rules… ?
Another look at non-lockdown area death rates versus lockdown areas UK Column viewer receives email from Neil Ferguson Ferguson is relying on computer models rather than reality… MainStream Media ignores large discrepancies in ONS CoronaVirus figures Neil Ferguson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Matt Hancock shamelessly fiddled figures to reach CoronaVirus test targets Matt Hancock : malfeasance in public office resulting in thousands of deaths… ?
Kate Hoey : is it becoming automatic for CV as contributing to be put on death certs… ?
Douglas Carswell : the big fall in infection rate happened BEFORE compulsory lockdown Will parliament discuss these lies that have caused people to die… ?
Mail : Dominic Cummings ‘ intervened at SAGE meeting to push experts to back lockdown ’ Still no discussion in parliament – backbench MPs are completely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : some members remain a secret to the public yet they have the UK locked up… Why the British public needs to know every name on SAGE Chief Scientific Advisor , Dept .
for International Development : meet Charlotte Watts Watts ties lead straight back to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation… SAGE : political interference not independence…is their advice really impartial… ?
Who is really running the British government… ?
28:15 – Europe : Austrian Freedom Party ’ s harsh criticism of government policy Austrian Freedom Party : stop making this exceptional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : using deaths for rhetoric is terrorism USA : Dallas salon owner sentenced to seven days in jail , ordered to pay fines Dallas salon owner : feeding my children is not selfish… 36:03 – Alternative View 11 livestream tickets available from UK Column website 37:52 – NHS social distancing App now being piloted on the Isle of Wight Authors of the App hold a master key for indentifying users… Guido Fawkes : NHS App rebuttal and response GCHQ granted access to NHS data as privacy concerns increase GCHQ works closely together with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ UK making ‘ impossible demands ’ over Europol database in EU talks Ian R. Crane is recovering well – hoping to be released soon

Brian Gerrish, Mike Robinson and Alex Thomson with today's UK Column News, bringing you the latest Coronavirus updates.
START - 43rd day of house arrest in the UK…CoronaVirus statistics update
Government ‘scientist’ Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules…
The Times tries to defend him ignoring his own advice: does he believe his rules…?
Another look at non-lockdown area death rates versus lockdown areas
UK Column viewer receives email from Neil Ferguson
Ferguson is relying on computer models rather than reality…
MainStream Media ignores large discrepancies in ONS CoronaVirus figures
Neil Ferguson: has he really resigned…?
Mirror: Matt Hancock shamelessly fiddled figures to reach CoronaVirus test targets
Matt Hancock: malfeasance in public office resulting in thousands of deaths…?
Kate Hoey: is it becoming automatic for CV as contributing to be put on death certs…?
Douglas Carswell: the big fall in infection rate happened BEFORE compulsory lockdown
Will parliament discuss these lies that have caused people to die…?
Mail: Dominic Cummings ‘intervened at SAGE meeting to push experts to back lockdown’
Still no discussion in parliament – backbench MPs are completely in the dark on the facts
SAGE: some members remain a secret to the public yet they have the UK locked up…
Why the British public needs to know every name on SAGE
Chief Scientific Advisor, Dept. for International Development: meet Charlotte Watts
Watts ties lead straight back to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation…
SAGE: political interference not independence…is their advice really impartial…?
Who is really running the British government…?
28:15 – Europe: Austrian Freedom Party’s harsh criticism of government policy
Austrian Freedom Party: stop making this exceptional situation permanent
Italian veteran MP Vittorio Sgarbi: using deaths for rhetoric is terrorism
USA: Dallas salon owner sentenced to seven days in jail, ordered to pay fines
Dallas salon owner: feeding my children is not selfish…
36:03 – Alternative View 11 livestream tickets available from UK Column website
37:52 – NHS social distancing App now being piloted on the Isle of Wight
Authors of the App hold a master key for indentifying users…
Guido Fawkes: NHS App rebuttal and response
GCHQ granted access to NHS data as privacy concerns increase
GCHQ works closely together with Israeli military intelligence
48:09 – Guardian: UK making ‘impossible demands’ over Europol database in EU talks
Ian R. Crane is recovering well – hoping to be released soon