Amused to hear the Today programme bring us a story about the government’s Ministry of Nudge…
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Behavioural scientist Dr David Halpern heads up Number 10’s ‘Nudge Unit’, the world’s first government institution that uses behavioural economics to examine and influence human behaviour, to ‘nudge’ us into making better decisions. We speak to him this morning.
Only to be followed by the BBC’s own masterclass in nudging us on immigration with yet another tale of desperation, danger, bravado and a lesson in humanity…..
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Europe is facing what the EU has called the worst refugee crisis since a World War Two. Greece alone has seen almost 160,000 people landing on its shores since January, the majority of them Syrians. We hear the story of one young man, who fled the war-torn city of Aleppo in pursuit of a new life in the UK.
Trouble is the story was entirely without any point other than that ‘nudge’, clearly designed to connect us emotionally to an immigrant, an ‘enemy’ only being someone whose story you haven’t heard yet, and once you’ve heard his tale your heart will open to him and you’ll be on his side rooting for immigrants and immigration.
It didn’t help though that at the end the immigrant said that his tactic was just to get into the UK and thereby force Britain to accept him just by stint of him being here already and the obvious trouble it is to return such as him from whence they came. It hardly generated any sympathy towards him.
Remember this from a previous post describing how the public were to be gulled into accepting mass immigration?….
‘We had someone on from Oxfam. He was asked how he would sell the public the idea that we must allow in more migrants…..not a leading question at all is it?, one that pre-supposes we should let them in….once again the BBC not reportng but campaigning.
His answer was that Britain has to accept more asylum seekers… he’d sell the idea by ‘describing the misery of the lives of people in Syria and the desperation of those who are crossing the ocean with terrible risk to their lives and terrible suffering….when you get that sense of personal connectivity you recognise that these are not just people who are looking for a sunnier tomorrow, they are people who are living in fear and in poverty.’
Curioiusly that is exactly how the BBC goes about ‘reporting’ the issues already. In other words they are ‘selling us the idea’ of more migrants being allowed in to Britain….wherever they come from and for whatever reason.’
There is a slight danger to indulging cutsey new words like ‘nudge’.
It is, was and always will be propaganda; nothing more and nothing less. No matter which branch of the establishment is spinning it.
There are differences. Government gets held totally to account, and if egregious can be voted out within a few years.
The BBC is unaccountable, and for good measure operates aggressive censorship from editorial to CECUTT to DPA to try and keep it that way.
Trouble for them is, such ‘do as we demand; don’t ask us back’ practices are now regularly being seen for the hypocrisies they are, in places outside their control.
I do not wish to pay, especially without option, or under threat, for a policy-shaping force whose ambitions I do not share. They can have them and pitch them, but in an open forum and not under a speaking for the nation faux brand, thank you very much.
” It hardly generated any sympathy towards him.”
That would certainly be the reaction of anyone reasonable which includes, according to every opinion poll, the majority of the great British public. Al Beeb’s clear strategy in their continuous airing of this even clearer propaganda is to change the opinions of the majority amongst us who, whilst sympathetic to the plight of genuine refugees from war or persecution, see lots of able-bodied young men who decline seeking safe haven anywhere else in Europe but who insist on gaining illegal entry to the UK. The Left’s fellow-travellers will tell us that this has nothing to do with our lax regulations on illegal work and the poor control on benefit claimants but is rather because they have links with the UK, perhaps speaking a few words of English or because friends or family have themselves managed to gain asylum (and benefits, do any refuse public handouts, I wonder?), perhaps by similar methods.
I liked the bit towards the end of the interview when it was suggested that experimenting was important and that all the alternatives should be tried.
Finally there is the killer line, “..more appealing to most people, why wouldn’t you do that?”
Imagine, not closing down alternative arguments, not insisting that the issues are ‘settled’ and actually listening to what the people want! Sounds like the BBC needs a nudge unit!
What the practitioners of ‘nudge’ fail to understand (because they are so busy selling it as an expensive ‘service’ to government) is that it generates its own resistance. The working model of ‘nudgology’ is that people are clay, to be moulded. The problem is, they just aren’t. You spend your money on messages vilifying salt and sugar in food, and people buy sugar and salt and put it back in – from pot noodles to cereals. You spread propaganda of all kinds, and people spot it for lies and half-truths, with great reliability. What ‘nudge’ seems to do with a terrible inevitability is to paradoxically engage almost entirely with people’s ability to judge for themselves, but to constrain it to shows of obstinacy and ‘apathy’ – rational reactions to being sold a pup.
There was an item on this morning’s Today programme discussing the use of the term ‘mediaeval’ to describe the IS. It was claimed the term is inappropriate because the techniques IS uses are thoroughly modern, even futuristic. The interviewer and his interviewee both totally failed to grasp the point that it is the beliefs of IS that are mediaeval (at best – they really date solidly back to the founding of Islam centuries before the mediaeval).
The point here is that the real failing of ‘nudge’ – right at its threadbare core – is its model of human psychology. It relies on theories of human behaviour which were bankrupted seventy years ago. Because they don’t work, all that ‘nudge’ does is serve as the velvet glove on the same old iron fist of government force against its own people. It can only succeed in producing a baffling (to its practitioners) surge in ‘apathy’ and ‘disengagement’, which then needs rolling over by more ‘robust’ means. You hold a referendum; it produces an ‘unenlightened’ result; you hold another, or you simply constrain the government to act in defiance of it.
What is so galling here is the use of phony academic theories which demean and insult people’s intelligence in order to prop themselves up when reality fails to cooperate.. the cost of maintaining a bankrupt theory in the face of rational rejection is the use of force. Climate change alarmism is another obvious case.
And earlier we had Webb interviewing an Estonian minister on the issue.
(Paraphrased) ‘Is it fair that Greece and Italy should be bearing the brunt of this? Shouldn’t the other EU countries be doing more to share the burden?’
The BBC has a clear agenda on this. In their eyes the problem can only have one solution – let them all in and share them round. Blocking and repatriation never enters their tiny internationalist heads. The fact more and more will be encouraged to come and the tens of thousands will quickly turn to the hundreds of thousands which will eventually become millions does not seem to matter.
I’d just ask Webb one question: if this continues, what quality of life do you envisage you and your children having in 20-30 years time?
‘The BBC has a clear agenda on this”
As some coined earlier, the ‘so-called British’ BC should not have any other agenda than reporting facts and serving the nation forced to pay them.
Acting as a fifth column PR agency for EU interests is a conflict of interest.
I am sure wealthy Beeboids, like Webb, have lots of space in their houses for immigrants. Why don’t they volunteer to show us the way ?
The BBC approves of ‘nudging’, naturally enough. Another way to look at it is by saying the BBC approves of social engineering, because that is what ‘nudging’ amounts to. The fact ‘nudging’ has long been a pet project of Call Me Dave is just further evidence of its incipient uselessness and also of its pernicious mission creep.
Of course, if it hadn’t been for the progressive experiments of the New Labour Project, ‘nudging’ would never have taken root, but it’s here now and here to stay. Progressives like ‘nudging’ – that sort of forced behavioural management comes naturally to liberal fascists (no fans of individualism, after all). If Common Purpose is ever to be achieved in the plebiscite en masse, then ‘nudging’ is clearly a way forward.
So the BBC, ‘Nudge Central’, happily goes about its business, surreptitiously never missing a chance to ‘nudge’ – be it via its current affairs programming or drama, comedy or documentary. With the BBC, there’s always an agenda at work and it can usually be found by scratching just a little below the surface of whatever it is you are watching or listening to from the state broadcaster. Sometimes it’s blatant; the BBC seems to grow daily more brazen and unconcerned about meeting its remit for ‘balance’ and ‘impartiality’. These days, because the BBC sees itself less as a publicly funded broadcaster and more as a publicly funded advocacy organisation, spotting the ‘nudge’ is becoming so easy it’s now the BBC’s default position – on just about everything.
I do not have time to chase up the article but sometime in the early years of the coalition there was an article showing how Cameron was influenced by the book of nudging theory. Hence the ‘call me Dave’ ‘hug a hoody’ and probably worse.
The BBC continues to ignore the lessons of the General Election. No amount of ‘nudging’ (‘NHS in crisis’ stories being a good example)will convince the British public to go against their common sense and act in the way the BBC wants them too if they don’t agree with it.
Quite sensibly, the UK public, by and large, have had enough of mass immigration. Germany may be taking 800,000 migrants this year but the UK has had more than its share in the last 20 years, from within the EU added to which are illegals from West Africa, Somalia etc. Public unrest in Germany is now beginning too and may well escalate.
Syria is a terrible place to have to live in, but once emigrants have crossed into Turkey, they are out of the war zone. Any further movement is economic migration. The overwhelming number of African migrants are also economic, not genuine asylum seekers.
The EU’s response to this is chaotic and unsustainable. Greece and Italy let them in and from then on the rest of the EU seems to have no choice. The Eurocracy and its fellow travellers are playing with fire here. The BBC Today programme (Mr Webb yet again) posed another leading question to some pro-immigration stooge ( an Estonian whose country is taking 140 but sees fit to berate everyone else for not taking enough), saying that EU governments must force a change of attitude in their populations.
The BBC just doesn’t seem to understand that the undemocratic nature of the EU is the problem not the solution. The EU vote in the UK next year may well be swung by this continued hectoring by anti-democratic Europhiles and Eurocrats. Nudging will not work.
I have personal experience from the other side of the fence ( so to speak ), as I live in Gambia and know some of the families affected by “back way” emigration. The Gambian Government estimate that about 10000 have tried this route. To be fair to the Government ( something which sticks in my throat ), they do campaign against it. But, there is no question that these are all economic emigrants ( political emigres have different routes and, mainly, aim for the USA ) . I invite the BBC to come to Gambia and report on the situation here. I shall personally escort them, and arrange introductions, for no fee, expenses only, which includes lunch !
I would encourage you to make that offer directly to the BBC. Unfortunately I have no idea how you contact their editorial teams. That is a programme I would very much like to see.
Webb( or Pike ) was also nudging us along bemoaning the removal of live sports coverage from bBC
“to behind SKY and BT paywalls”. Also detected a nudge that an increase in licence tax could enable bBC to recapture some of their old sports turf …………..funny that they dont seem to think of the Licence tax as a paywall………….a proper wall…you get put up against for non payment.
Why is there any sports coverage on the BBC in the first place ?