Scandals such as the infected blood disgrace fuel conspiracy theories

And sadly, to be honest, who can blame them?

My family conspiracist believes in all sorts of wild and outrageous fantasies. Most are harmless, but increasingly, of late, others drift towards the dangerous.

My relative is entirely convinced that the human race was created by aliens, and the Bermuda Triangle is real. So what? That hurts nobody. Covid, though, tipped them into a darker place: the pandemic was a hoax, lockdown was a totalitarian plot, and vaccines were designed to kill us.

Now, I can attempt reasoned conversation with my relative, arguing that Covid was indeed very real; that lockdown may well have been badly flawed but what else could we do with the knowledge, time and resources available; and that vaccines are just medicine and while not all medicines are perfect, they’re better than nothing.

But it’s to no avail. Not only do conspiracy theorists have answers for everything - even if those answers mangle reason and fact - but they can simply point to a whole plethora of events as proof that our governments and those in authority lie to us, endanger us and then cover it up.

Covid lockdowns fuelled conspiracies worldwide (Image: free)

The official report into the Infected Blood Scandal says definitively that there was a “cover-up”, adding: “The infections happened because those in authority - doctors, the blood services and successive governments - did not put patient safety first.”

There was “downright deception”, the report concluded. Those in power were guilty of “hiding the truth”. The Thatcher government was singled out for rebuffing calls for compensation with “wrong” claims about victims being given "the best treatment available”.

To remind readers: 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis between 1970-1991. Around 3000 died. Children were used as guinea pigs by doctors for more than 15 years.

How often have we lived through this type of scandal? I was a baby during Watergate, the defining government conspiracy of the modern era. We’ve had Bloody Sunday, Thalidomide, Hillsborough - and a host of others. The Post Office scandal still trundles on.

Each one of these events followed a similar pattern: wrong-doing, the victimisation of innocent people, lies by authorities, and cover-up. Eventually, often after decades, the truth struggles into public sight.

These are true conspiracies. There’s nothing theoretical here. It happened.

These events are also the soil in which the madness of conspiracy theories flourishes. Anyone who wants to claim that Bill Gates plans to microchip us all, or Hillary Clinton drinks the blood of kidnapped babies (real conspiracy theories incidentally, not flights of hyperbole from my pen) can simply call on the Infected Blood Scandal, Hillsborough, the Post Office, Bloody Sunday or Thalidomide as witnesses for the prosecution.

Governments have been mistreating us and lying about it for generations. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in America happened between 1932-1972. Medical researchers didn’t tell hundreds of black men that they were infected with syphilis in order to study its dreadful effects: paralysis, blindness and dementia.

This happened. My conspiracy theory relative has such events memorised by heart. Try to have a nuanced conversation about vaccines or lockdown, and the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is thrown in your face as a silencer. What can you say in response?

Clearly, cover-ups like the Infected Blood Scandal aren’t just events for conspiracy theorists to exploit so they can prop up their belief systems. Aside from their real-world consequences - the broken lives left behind - these cover-ups shatter the principle of trust in government.

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You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to centre-stage doubt in your mind when a politician talks. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorists to ascribe a hefty dollop of caution to those who wield any form of power. Given the number of state-sanctioned cover-ups, you’d be a fool to do otherwise.

Look at levels of trust in government here in Britain. It stands at 39%. We’re behind Turkey, which is on 43%. Now look at a country like Denmark. Trust in government there stands at 64%.

Denmark is a nation famous for its levels of trust. It’s a country where people feel safe enough to leave babies in prams outside cafes while they drink coffee. In Denmark, 74% believe “most people can be trusted”.

Now set those figures against global research on where conspiracy theories have most traction. Denmark often comes out bottom in terms of the numbers of people who buy into conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theories are now among the most pressing threats which democracy faces in the west. In America, the palpable lie that Donald Trump lost the election could well be the deciding factor in the next presidential race. Around one-third of Americans believe Trump won the 2020 vote.

And cover-ups are still on-going. More will be revealed, eroding more trust in government. We’ve yet to reckon fully with state collusion between British security forces and terror organisations during the Northern Ireland Troubles. There’s claims of cover-up around allegations that British special forces carried out acts of murder in Afghanistan. An inquiry is just about to begin into the treatment of chronically-ill and disabled people by UK welfare officials, including benefits decisions linked to deaths of vulnerable claimants.

What do we do? As ever, sunlight is the best disinfectant. None of these events would have come to light without a healthy media giving voice to victims and investigating their suffering.

But the media only swings into operation once cover-ups happen. We therefore need a deterrent, and the best deterrent is jail. Hillsborough families are campaigning for a new law which would put a duty on public authorities and officials to tell the truth. Keir Starmer says he’ll introduce such a law. It should come with a range of penalties including criminal conviction.

The only way to rebuild trust, the only way to smother the epidemic of conspiracy theories, is for the public to see those who engage in cover-ups behind bars.