This morning I was looking on Twitter at the heartbreaking messages from people who had not been able to see their loved ones before they died in May 2020 due to the Covid rules in force at the time, or to attend family funerals or visit relatives in care homes. These are deeply hurtful and scarring experiences.

I also thought to myself, how do most people feel about being told in the Spring of 2020 that they could, legally, only meet up with one person outdoors, now they know that there were parties with 30 or more people held in Downing Street at the very same time? Or about members of the public being fined by the police for breaking the same rules the Prime Minister introduced – yet broke – himself whilst, of course, concealing the truth from everyone?

I turned to thinking about Brexit and the damage and uncertainty caused to multiple interests, especially famers and fishing communities, but also to students and people who used to move regularly between the UK and the EU. This article is not about comparing the tragedies of Covid and Brexit, as Covid is infinitely worse due to the enormity of the loss of life and the associated heartache, but it is about the same way the Conservative Government has handled these two major catastrophes and continues to do so – and the kind of damage their duplicity has surely done to many people’s mental health.

How do so many who campaigned and marched against Brexit now feel, seeing all the worst predictions about the disruption it would cause coming true?  Without a single person in Government taking responsibility for the obvious failures and disruption including  more than five years of bitter division in society.

My take on this is that the Conservatives, but particularly the current Government, have psychologically harmed millions of people through their dishonesty and gaslighting. Saying one thing and doing another, consistently, over years, has worn people down.  This makes many of us lose hope and grow apathetic. Why bother to campaign, or complain, or march, when there are never any consequences for those in this Government? They either do the exact opposite of what they are asking the public to do or effectively lie about the benefits of a certain course of action for their own narrow political and ideological ambitions.

This speaks of a scale of psychological damage inflicted on a population that has never quite been seen before in modern times. This Government’s pronouncements are often contradictory or inaccurate with the Prime Minister telling Parliament and the people what we know to be downright untruths.

What are we to do? Firstly, we must look after our own mental health and trust ourselves to believe what we know to be true. We, somehow, have to hang on to reality. The Chesham and Amersham and North Shropshire by-elections show that all is not lost.

I actually don’t know what psychologists would call the phenomenon where a ruling party behaves quite the way the Conservatives have done towards the electorate, but I know that the effects for too many include serious psychological harm.   

* Judy Abel is a Lib Dem member who has worked in health policy for several major health charities. (She is still working)