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this is classic catastrophe mismanagement: the government got freaked out at opinion polls saying that the public wouldn't resume their daily lives as normal if the government decided to announce the end the lockdown, and overreacted to try to influence that.
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but actually that was pretty sensible of the public? and rather than accept that they were not, ultimately, in control of the situation, and work to support the public as a whole, the government decided they needed to control what was happening.
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so they turned to their usual instrument: anonymous briefings to newspapers.
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related question: what's happening with the NHS Volunteers? is that proving to be helpful, did they mobilise people in a good way with that? or did they just control & neutralise some of the energy that would've went to mutual aid groups?