Authoritarian government depends on fear. Ministers need to spread fear to justify what they are doing and achieve compliance. So we have the continual attempt to pretend that everyone is at risk, even if they are under 60 and in good health. We have the dodgy charts deployed last week to persuade us that infections were doubling every week. We have continual threats to lock us down. This kind of behaviour destroys trust. If the government were trusted, it would not need to resort to coercion on the scale that it is doing. People are more likely to comply if the advice makes sense, is presented to them coherently, in calm language, and is supported by evidence which has not been crudely hyped up.
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