THE hundreds of thousands of WhatsApp messages sent by government ministers during the pandemic and leaked to the Daily Telegraph led to days of news coverage last month.

However, other than being published in a Tory-supporting broadsheet, one important part of the story has already been forgotten.

As the Telegraph reported on March 3: “Boris Johnson considered lifting lockdown restrictions early but decided against it after being told that such a move would not be popular with the general public.”

This refers to discussions on WhatsApp during the first lockdown, on June 6 2020, with the then-prime minister arguing for easing some restrictions earlier than originally planned.

However, Johnson noted Lee Cain, Downing Street’s director of communications, and James Slack, his official spokesperson, “still think the whole package [Johnson’s wish to remove some restrictions early] will be too far ahead of public opinion.” Health Secretary Matt Hancock agreed, replying: “My view is the public are right and we need to hold our nerve.”

The Telegraph notes this “was not the only time that public opinion was used to formulate policy, or at least to inform it.”

In April 2020 Hancock messaged Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings: “We should do a Cabinet briefing on the polling — so they know that >50 per cent of the public want the same or stronger lockdown — including >50 per cent of Tories.”

Cummings agreed, setting up a briefing from pollster Isaac Levido. In both of these examples public opinion, or at least the government’s perception of public opinion, strengthened the hand of the (slightly) more sensible actors in government.

Unsurprisingly, the Torygraph, which published lots of articles on Covid from the dangerously ignorant Toby Young, framed the WhatsApp messages above as the government being driven by spin doctors rather than the science.

In reality, the public consensus was supported by expert opinion: in May and June 2020, scientists from the government’s own Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), Independent Sage and the World Health Organisation all warned the government about lifting restrictions too early.

There are also indications public opinion played a key role in forcing the government’s hand in introducing the national lockdown in the first place on March 23 2020. In April 2020, a Telegraph report about the government’s lockdown “exit plan” quoted a “cabinet source” as saying: “They [the government] are waiting for the public to change their mind. We didn’t want to go down this route in the first place — public and media pressure pushed the lockdown, we went with the science.”

Why is all of this important?

First, the influence of public opinion in compelling the government to lock down earlier than it would otherwise have done, and also discouraging the government from opening up as early as it would have liked to, likely saved tens of thousands of lives.

Despite this, as far as I am aware there hasn’t been any serious discussion about the impact of public opinion and protest on government policy during the pandemic.

All governments like to project an image of themselves as one of being in control and making decisions in a timely and deliberate manner — and the media reinforces this framing by focusing their coverage on elite actors in Westminster.

Not unrelated, there is a persistent, despairing notion held by some people that public opinion is unimportant, and dissent and action are a waste of time — sentiments like “the government will ignore you” and “voting won’t change anything.”

In contrast, the evidence above suggests a far more nuanced and hopeful conclusion: in the right circumstances public opinion and protest can have a significant impact on government policy. In short, to quote the title of legendary US activist David Dellinger’s 1975 book, we have More Power Than We Know.

Indeed, a careful reading of the news tosses up many examples of the public’s power.

Take, for example, the government’s plan to raise the age people can claim their state pension — to 68. This was due to happen after 2044.

However, in January the Sun newspaper reported “the Treasury is said to want the change to 68 to come in as early as 2035,” with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt “eyeing up announcing the move as early as the March Budget.”

Though pensions aren’t the most exciting topic they are nevertheless incredibly important. Increasing the pension age would impact millions of people, giving them less time in retirement, with poorer people being hit the hardest as they tend to have a lower life expectancy.

But there is some good news: at the end of March the government announced that the decision on whether to raise the pension age had been postponed until after the next election.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride linked the delay to a slowing of the rate of increase in life expectancy, according to the Financial Times. However, the Guardian — in a tiny report on page 20 — highlighted two other factors behind the U-turn: “Ministers had feared a potential backlash to the change from middle-aged voters. Riots in France over a planned increase in the country’s pension age to 64 have also spooked UK officials.”

Writing in the Financial Times last month about the ongoing unrest across the channel, Simon Kuper dismissed France’s “irrelevant parliament.”

“France today has three branches of government: the presidency, the judiciary and the street. If the president decides to do something, only the street can stop him — by stopping the country through protests and strikes.”

So it seems that even protests that occur in another nation can have a significant impact on British government policy.

Moreover, it’s important to note the British government put their pension plan on hold because of how the public might react, rather than because of any protests or backlash that have already occurred in the country.

All this is especially encouraging when you consider an article in the Guardian last month analysing the government’s partial climbdown on industrial action by NHS workers.

“The prime minister has form on belatedly caving in to political pressure,” Heather Stewart explained. She provided two recent examples of Rishi Sunak’s susceptibility to pressure when he was Chancellor: in spring 2022 “he delivered a financial statement widely regarded as inadequate to tackle the looming cost of living crisis. A few weeks later, he was back in the House of Commons, having another go.”

Second, during the pandemic, he “repeatedly signalled the end of costly furlough scheme, before being pressurised into extending it rather than risk hundreds of thousands of layoffs.”

With opinion polls currently suggesting the Tory government will be kicked out at the next general election (which has to be called by December 2024), the left has a window of opportunity to take advantage of a relatively weak Tory government to push through progressive change.

There is precedent. It seems likely one reason the anti-roads movement in the early ’90s was so successful in stopping the government’s huge road-building plans was because it peaked towards the tired end of 18 years of Tory rule.

And it also seems probable Friends of the Earth’s campaign for a Climate Change Act (passed in 2008) was won partly because of the timing: New Labour’s power was waning, and the environmental NGO was able to generate a political arms race on climate policy between David Cameron’s rebranded Tory Party and Tony Blair’s government.

Rather than Labour and the Tories fighting it out in the gutter to see who can appear toughest when it comes to “law and order,” wouldn’t it be great to see public pressure force Westminster to the left on issues like climate policy, public-sector pay, refugees and child poverty instead?

Co-authored by Ian Sinclair and Rupert Read and edited by Joanna Booth, A Timeline of the Plague Year: A Comprehensive Record of the UK Government’s Response to the Coronavirus Crisis is available as an e-book at www.covidtheplagueyear.wordpress.com. 

Follow Ian on Twitter @IanJSinclair.