Are attempts to boost vaccine takeup genuine policies or PR stunts? Something strange seems to be going on in government
Something strange seems to be going on in the Conservative government.
Recent weeks have seen ministers announce mandatory vaccination to enter nightclubs, speak supportively of businesses that demand workers are jabbed and moot the idea of barring students from university who’ve not been inoculated.
Novel developments for members of the self-professed “freedom-loving” party.
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The question being asked in Westminster is whether this is genuine policy – or just a PR stunt.
“There’s a lot of attempts to drive vaccine uptake and lots of concepts being mooted subtly or not so subtly with no real intent behind them,” said one Whitehall official.
Conservative MPs agree, with several telling Sky News earlier this week they didn’t think plans to restrict access to nightclubs and other events would ever materialise.
One of the proposals has already been shelved, with the government announcing this weekend there are now no plans to use the COVID pass for access to learning.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is understood to have made clear there would have been legal implications and potentially little benefit, given polling shows a vast majority of students say they will have the jab.
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But the fact these ideas are even being suggested is enough to drive some backbenchers potty.
Several MPs have already said they won’t be attending this year’s party conference if they are forced to show their vaccination status.
Others worry about sailing too close to compulsory vaccination and the ethical implications of a heavy-handed approach.
“It was wrong-headed and should have been done by carrots,” says one senior backbencher of the plan for universities.
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Those carrots now appear to be sprouting, with companies like Uber and Deliveroo offering discounts to customers who get vaccinated.
Scientists say these approaches are not without risk, but still avoid many of the problems of the negative incentive “stick” strategy.
“They are less likely to lead to perceptions of compulsion and generate a process of ‘reactance’ where people resist in order to reassert their autonomy,” said Professor Stephen Reicher, an advisor to the government on public behaviour.
But as well as the societal impact, there’s also a business impact.
Those in hospitality say Health Secretary Sajid Javid’s initially bullish tone on reopening led to share price boosts and funds flowing in.
Speculative stories about COVID passports disrupt that, with a single front page story potentially undoing weeks of growing confidence.
The calculation in government may be that the longer-term benefit of high vaccine uptake to the economy and society is worth any short-term bumpiness.
But some, like Professor Reicher, worry that neither the carrot nor the stick will be sufficient on their own.
“What is critical is to show people that the authorities are of the community and acting for the community,” he said.
“That is why processes of engagement are generally much more effective than processes of incentivisation.”
Politics
Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government dies aged 94
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.
Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.
One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.
He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.
Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.
“May he rest in peace.”
Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA
Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.
“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.
“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.
He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.
Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.
Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.
Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.
Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.
He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.
Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA
As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.
His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.
He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.
What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.
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