Lockdown critics are far from enthused by the public inquiry into the UK government’s handling of COVID. Too much credence, they warn, is given to the view that ministers should have locked the country down sooner, harder, and for longer. Laura Dodsworth, who has written extensively on the government’s weaponisation of fear during the pandemic, argues that “it would be better to have no inquiry than this inquiry.” All the while, evidence of a serious, official attempt to silence sceptics during the pandemic is coming to light, giving rise to calls for a new, more targeted investigation.
An investigation by Big Brother Watch and The Daily Telegraph earlier this month revealed that the UK government established a secretive Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) which worked with social media companies to shut down debate about its COVID response. The body had “daily, sometimes hourly” contact with these influential companies, according to its leader, monitoring posts by critics and reportedly preventing the promotion of—if not outright removing—their posts. The government, of which current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is now seeking to take a stand on regulating artificial intelligence, was a part, used this very technology to trawl the internet for “potentially harmful misinformation and disinformation.”
Among those who had their activity monitored was Molly Kingsley, executive founder of the child advocacy group UsForThem, which campaigned heavily for schools to be kept open, among much else. She told The European Conservative that
The reality is that throughout the pandemic, one narrative appears to have been amplified, and views contrary to that narrative, suppressed, by a government intent on monitoring and flagging inconvenient and unpalatable truths.
On the need for a fresh investigation, she added:
Given that bad inputs make for bad outputs, it’s hard to see how the COVID Inquiry is anything other than invalidated by these transgressions. A separate and urgent inquiry into the underhand tactics used by the government is needed—one which must be independent of government but with legal power to force full disclosure from government.
Former cabinet minister David Davis has also called for the unit to be completely shut down and put under proper investigation. Parliament’s most powerful committee—The Public Accounts Committee—ought, he told a Telegraph podcast, to be handed “the biggest combination of power and access and speed” for a thorough inquiry.
Responding to its report, a government spokesman told the newspaper:
The unit’s purpose is to track narratives and trends using publicly available information online to protect public health and national security. It has never tracked the activity of individuals and has a blanket ban on referring journalists and MPs to social media platforms. None of the people named in this report were ever referred to social media platforms by the Government and any claim otherwise is objectively false.
