Carrots, sticks and sermons - what do we need more of?

[bathsh3ba]

When I studied policy, one simple way to differentiate ways for governments to get policy compliance was to call them 'carrots, sticks or sermons'. Carrots incentivise compliance, sticks use coercion and sermons appeal to moral values.

When I heard last night about the new video from Chris Whitty, my first thought was 'more sermons' and my second was 'I think people are sick of those'. We seem to have few carrots other than the vaccine and a lot of sticks - but not a lot of enforcement.

So what would you change? I would cut the sermonising and put some carrots in for hopefully this final stretch. I think more sticks might risk a riot.

I think the credibility of the messenger is at stake now. If the messenger promises carrot but delivers stick, or gives sermons where sticks are necessary people will not engage anymore.

People can see that despite 10 months of hardship we are back to square one, except for the vaccine. It's a huge failure of policy and leadership that we are here.

Why pay out for carrots when sticks and sermons are so much cheaper.

Carrots for employers to support employees to keep kids at home

Sermons on how to reduce spread and not wear your mask below your nose! This message still isn’t there.
Also I’ve see loads of people touching cash points etc without using handgel.
The basics aren’t being done by some people.

Harsher sticks for absolute piss takers like celebrities having birthday parties

Less socially irresponsible carrots.

The first lockdown the financial carrots encouraged people to do the right thing. Although I appreciate it wasn't a system that worked for all.

All this promising we'll get out of it in months when pandemics often last 2 years is mixed messaging. People are stuffing to engage because history tells them "we'll be through this in a few months" isn't in fact a fact.

More sermons from respected people can can deliver a message. Now is the time for stark reality and the stick for ignoring that needs to be tougher. They need to get their (I imagine) extensive legal team on to the guidance/legislation and make it tighter.

People can see that despite 10 months of hardship we are back to square one, except for the vaccine. It's a huge failure of policy and leadership that we are here
Many countries are experiencing a second wave. At least we have developed a vaccine and are giving it out at pace. Thank goodness we aren't in France or Germany (or the EU) where we'd be in a worse situation with regard to vaccine roll out.

I'm struggling to think of any carrots which would encourage (for example) the correct wearing of masks on public transport.

Sticks need to be more widely used though. Or stocks, they'd work.

@DdraigGoch took me a minutes to realise stocks wasn’t a typo

Real information and more transparency.
More explanation. Just one example - By now we must know more about surface spread. I've read on here about people still washing shopping and isolating post. I'm not saying that's not necessary. I don't do it. What I'd really like to know is which efforts are our waning energy best aimed at and so on. Everything seems just as nebulous as in March.

@Tmpnamechange I like this idea- for me more scientific info would definitely help e.g. knowing how important ventilation is now and they've shown some good graphics on that.

Personally more enforcement of the sticks. Fed up of seeing people with masks round their necks, getting within 2m, taking unnecessary journeys. If you're not vulnerable/a keyworker/ have to work out of the home then just stay in! Coming down hard on businesses/employers claiming their employees should come in when they can work from home. I'm hearing about a lot that this time round.

Neither unfortunately only thing that works is closing the thing people want to do.
People travelling from t3 to soft play in t2 shows people will do what they want. t2 soft play encouraging them.
Shut takeaways/coffee etc too?
And b&q. i dont personally believe these are driving infection but it is possibly kids at school of those workers. It might be people travelling on pt to get places. Or leaving their area.

Maybe stop the meet a friend for a walk.
Cap the plaxes at school with priority list

I think there has been too much threat of sticks e.g. if the rates don't come down, then this will happen. It leaves those of us who are following the rules permanently anxious, as we have no control over the situation and are constantly on edge waiting to see if the threat will be carried through. In the summer, Chris Whitty kept saying that while they wanted to reopen schools, that would depend on people sticking to the rules. I was quite a bit more cautious than the rules permitted in the summer, but still spent the summer holidays very stressed wondering if DS would be able to go back to school.

I haven’t watched a single sermon since about may. I find out the top line updates from mumsnet. Cannot stand the sermons. They make me want to rebel against it all.

I haven't watched one either for a long time. I can't cope with watching Hancock and Johnson. In fact the last one I watched was when they announced test and trace. I'd been waiting for it and hoping it would take us so much closer to opening up more, but Hancock did such a good job of making it sounds sinister and threatening that I've tuned out since then.

I also have really struggled with the multiple cycles of leaking a new set of restrictions, then them being announced but with scanty information about what they will involve, then eventually getting to read what the legislation around it, so now I tend to try to stay centered until I can read the detail for myself, which means as little social media and press as possible.

Basically, their messaging has been so detrimental to my mental health that they've lost my trust. I am capable of looking at days. I am capable of understanding what we have to do.
Of everyone, I'm happy to listen to Tim Spector ( Zoe covid app) who gives a much more balanced view. When he says things are dire, I trust him.

Here's what the government could do differently, that would gain my respect:

• Stop leaking to the press things that "might" happen, to test the public mood. It's a cowardly strategy.
• Tone down the scaremongering. The government's briefings and slogans read like tabloid headlines which we have been bombarded with for years and years anyway. The more they do it, the less I respect them. When I see Boris pleading for us to stay at home, I see the boy who cried wolf. I'm still dubious about this "new strain"; it seemed just a little too conveniently timed, just before Christmas.
• Stop letting their mates off. Scummings should have been sacked instantly. Not doing this was a massive own goal.
• Sound more regretful about destroying businesses. They keep minimising this.
• MPs should take a 20% pay cut, as they have forced much of the country to do.
• Grovel more about the decimation they are causing to business, and talk more about how they will help with the mass unemployment which will soon be upon us; if they do this, the public might actually believe the government is on their side, instead of messing up our lives for shits and giggles.
• Grovel more about the destruction to mental health, and talk more about what they intend to do about it.
• Keep Saint Boris the Bellend off the briefings, or even better would be his resignation: his timing of the schools was a serious cock-up. I think many people just can't take him seriously any more. The more he speaks (out of his arsehole), the more stupid he and his government looks. I know it would be the same shit, different leader, but somebody in government must know that the public aren't taking it seriously, because it's coming from him.

My guess is that right now, they are deliberately piling on the doom and gloom as much as they can (as it's a miserable time of year anyway), so that if and when the vaccine does have the right effect, they can reverse the spin machine with "looooooooooooook! the vaccine is working! There is light at the end of the tunnel!!!", while manipulating the figures to make it look as if the vaccine is working. They might even backtrack with "the new strain wasn't as bad as we thought". If they are doing this, it doesn't make me respect them more - if they are indeed telling us what they think we need to hear, instead of the truth.

People love sticks. Hit me harder. Hit them harder. Why aren't you hitting me harder. I'm going to report them to the police because they haven't been hit hard or often enough.

@wanderings

Here's what the government could do differently, that would gain my respect:

• Stop leaking to the press things that "might" happen, to test the public mood. It's a cowardly strategy.
• Tone down the scaremongering. The government's briefings and slogans read like tabloid headlines which we have been bombarded with for years and years anyway. The more they do it, the less I respect them. When I see Boris pleading for us to stay at home, I see the boy who cried wolf. I'm still dubious about this "new strain"; it seemed just a little too conveniently timed, just before Christmas.
• Stop letting their mates off. Scummings should have been sacked instantly. Not doing this was a massive own goal.
• Sound more regretful about destroying businesses. They keep minimising this.
• MPs should take a 20% pay cut, as they have forced much of the country to do.
• Grovel more about the decimation they are causing to business, and talk more about how they will help with the mass unemployment which will soon be upon us; if they do this, the public might actually believe the government is on their side, instead of messing up our lives for shits and giggles.
• Grovel more about the destruction to mental health, and talk more about what they intend to do about it.
• Keep Saint Boris the Bellend off the briefings, or even better would be his resignation: his timing of the schools was a serious cock-up. I think many people just can't take him seriously any more. The more he speaks (out of his arsehole), the more stupid he and his government looks. I know it would be the same shit, different leader, but somebody in government must know that the public aren't taking it seriously, because it's coming from him.

My guess is that right now, they are deliberately piling on the doom and gloom as much as they can (as it's a miserable time of year anyway), so that if and when the vaccine does have the right effect, they can reverse the spin machine with "looooooooooooook! the vaccine is working! There is light at the end of the tunnel!!!", while manipulating the figures to make it look as if the vaccine is working. They might even backtrack with "the new strain wasn't as bad as we thought". If they are doing this, it doesn't make me respect them more - if they are indeed telling us what they think we need to hear, instead of the truth.

So you think all the scientists from various universities are lying about the new strain. All of them? In different countries?

I mean I have no respect for Boris and his pals but I don't think there is a global conspiracy over this. Do you also think climate change is a conspiracy?