The Nudge Unit’s involvement in the costly and unscientific aspects of the covid pandemic response has caused significant damage and financial strain for the UK.
It is only right, therefore, to hold the Nudge Unit to account.
Once upon a time (2010 to be precise), somewhat unexpectedly in a Rose Garden in Westminster, a bromance blossomed. The honeymoon couple – call them Cameron and Clegg – fell out of love in short order, but the unhappy union limped on for a fixed term of five years and a day, during which time many a policy decision was made that was neither fish nor fowl, neither blue nor yellow.
One of the products of this unhappy union was the establishment of the Behavioural Insights Team (“BIT,” aka the “Nudge Unit”), created within the Cabinet Office by Prime Minister Cameron’s director of strategy Steve Hilton. Given the entity’s aims to shape and mould the behaviour of society’s denizens by stealth – a nudge here, a nudge there – one might have expected it to lurk in the shadows.
“Hiding in plain sight” might be a more appropriate description. Listening to recent declarations from senior behavioural scientists who have access to – or are close to – the levers of power, it is only right to raise a few red flags as to the direction of travel. Regular HART bulletin readers will be well acquainted with the leading lights of BIT, their role in the coronapanic debacle and the resulting questions we have asked them regarding the use of nudging on the general population during this time.
Professor David Halpern, the chief executive and one of the founders of the Behavioural Insights Team, in defending the use of fear-based messaging at the Hallett
