To think we're more politically apathetic than ever?

[penelopepitstopsgain]

Now I remember the Iraq war protests when 750,000+ marched to try and avert what many believed (without any expert insight) to be the wrong course of action. To no avail, but there was such a huge impetus to hold the government to account and let them know we knew and expected better from them.

Fast forward to 2020 and here we are facing a catastrophic pandemic with upward of 20,000 UK mums, dads, sisters, brothers dead including health professionals and we hear day after day of government failings.. but where is the outrage??

I'm truly baffled, and this is not a party political issue before I start hearing about Diane and Jeremy. There are no political points to score when death is concerned.

We cant' march on downing street but where are the petitions and demands to MPs to ensure we are getting the best possible outcomes?

From reports today that the new Nightingale Hospital has had to turn away patients due to a lack of nurses, the fiasco of the PPE which is still in Turkey 72 hours (or more like 5 weeks) after it was needed, the opting out of the EU ventilator scheme that could have undoubtedly assisted with saving lives, the PM missing 5 successive cobra meetings and more preoccupied with getting divorced and engaged as exposed in the Tory supporting paper, The Times ...have we become so apathetic that we no longer have the will to challenge and fight for a better outcome even though the stakes are as high as it gets?

I actually feel more political than ever, this pandemic has really brought to light a lot of issues I feel passionate about (underpaid key workers, billionaires seeking bailouts, neglect of some in care homes etc). However I feel somewhat apathetic that no party represents my views or has the power to action anything.

The very first response to the OP is a fine example of apathy in action: "They are doing their best"
Well, it's either apathy or blind faith in a demonstrably incompetent government.

The skills I have in relation to contingency planning are not a dark art - they are largely based on common sense and having worked in both public and private sector, I can attest that standard procedures exist in both sectors, for 360 planning for all eventualities.

Germany are in a completely different position with regard to their ability to roll out mass testing.

What do you mean?

Germany hasn't had any more preparedness for Covid 19 testing than anyone else. Unless you can provide evidence to the contrary.

What they did do, however, was listen to the WHO when they said "test, test , test" in addition to implementing a lock down and ramping up their health service. This early intervention means they have been able to track, trace and treat to keep cases low so that their health service never even came close to capacity.

I am still at a loss as to why so many like you are keen to dismiss any parallels or insights from other countries - it's almost as though unless you have an EXACT replica of the UK, anything that happens elsewhere is irrelevant and we should put our fingers in our ears and march on - I'm all for debate but please base your response on facts not supposition and blind faith.

However I feel somewhat apathetic that no party represents my views or has the power to action anything
^This. The closest any party has come recently was Corbyn Labour and they got trounced so I am obviously out of step.
I am apathetic because our electoral system means my vote is ignored and totally wasted every time.

"But the deaths of thousands of people....all okay for some reason" yeah I think it was a bad decision by the Tories to have a virus at all. Now just wasn't a good time for it.

Of course there can be criticisms of the way it was handled, but you need to separate those decisions made by our current leaders from those conditions that existed before the virus appeared. Letting the health service run down was a terrible idea, but that had already happened. (by all means criticise those who let that happen)

Some of the decisions since the virus might have been better in hindsight, but hindsight is wonderfully clear isn't it. Like saying "you should have bet on ... " after the race is run.

You also have to remember that there were no perfect answers. Once it was inside the UK there was no stopping it. Closing borders then achieves nothing at all. The only choices were about minimising the numbers or rather choosing a path designed to have the minimum deaths consistent with still having a country afterwards.

And that path is an educated guess. No one knows the exact sequence of decisions necessary to achieve it.

But by all means criticise the smaller stuff. I think letting Cheltenham go ahead was a stupid decision.

But even that. How much difference did it make in the long run? Remember that we need people to catch it and get over it. We were already past the point of preventing it.

Me too Hinge. There was an immediate hostility to anything that went against the accepted narrative and ideology of 'privatise everything in sight'. The hostility was successful, the talk was all about stopping 'communists' from getting hold. It sounded like the McCarthy era in America. Rational debate about either overall strategies or specific policies is impossible in this kind of atmosphere.

But about the pandemic specifically, I think we're all a bit busy worrying right now aren't we? We are too busy firefighting. The government does need to be called to account for their complete lack of any long-term planning, but is this the time? It also does involve taking that ideology of cuts, small states and privatisation head on, again, and how are we to do that when every alternative is immediately smeared as communism with people refusing to give a damn about the fallout of extreme capitalism?

Has everyone forgotten the climate change rioters in London last year? Thousands of people causing chaos to push their agenda. And what about Brexit? People were banging on about that for years. There was a seemingly never-ending protest outside Parliament about it.

People aren't protesting right now because it really isn't a good idea what with COVID-19 and all that. But I think in the very recent part we've seen an awful lot of action which demonstrates there is not an overwhelming amount of apathy.

It has been said that actually we are more politically motivated than ever: there are any number of charities out there with political aims and huge support.

What we don't get is much motivation for the traditional party politics, and that is an important distinction, albeit one of those bleedin' obvious ones, that nevertheless perhaps isn't paid enough attention. When you vote for a party, you are not just voting for one or two policies. You are voting for a package of policies. Those policies are not necessarily consistent, in fact they can result in direct contradictions. And just what the heck are you supposed to do when you get a choice of two packages, ok maybe three, each of which contains a 'deal-breaker' for you? My political leanings are centre-left, I want the recognition of a societal need - basically unchanged across any society, but expanded in ours - for public sector services. But when every single party with that policy stands up and tries to tell me that to agree with them, I must agree to believe in fairytales and be willing to lie in court at need while simultaneously swearing an oath to say I won't lie about biological truths, there is a real problem.

And, going back to the op - you cannot engage with British politics without dealing with the parties.

@ThrowingGoodAfterBad I agree to a certain extent that there are recent examples of political activism, however, as you allude to that has also be coupled with a splintering of traditional political allegiances leaving many politically homeless and feeling apathetic about their ability to drive change.

I don't really focus on a particular party but I do hate injustice and believe those in charge have a duty to be honest (warts and all) about their strengths and weaknesses if only so that our expectations are lowered or set accurately.

I mention the Iraq war because no one cared whether you were Green, Liberal or Tory; our only focus was on saving lives and that should be the case when we challenge the government of any day.

I agree Throwing - lots of policies have been swapped between the main parties over the years. Just one example - ID cards -

When the Tories wanted ID cards Labour and Lib Dems opposed. The Labour decided they were a good idea suddenly but got voted out before they'd finished the job and then the Tories who thought it was a good idea at one point, scrapped them.

And BTW, I am against ID cards - but I voted Labour and they changed their minds.

feeling apathetic about their ability to drive change.

We feel that way because it's true. No-one in government gives a fuck what I think - about anything.

Penelopepitstop - Germany have a much bigger pharma industry, massive testing centres and a ready availability to test 10s of thousands. They were able to make enormous quantities of the testing kit and had all the chemicals to hand. Countries have had to 'invent' a new test as it's a new virus and Germany were one of the best placed countries in the world to do it. Germany was Testing testing, testing long before the WHO said it. I would also suggest that having Angela Merkel, a scientist as chancellor has to make a difference.

Their proportion of ICU bed to population is considerably higher than here. Thus they didn't need to change the use of so many wards and theatres in hospitals or 'build' new hospitals. Which, once the virus was likely to get hold was a priority having seen what happened in Italy with patients in corridors and tents.
My experience of procurement in local government has not been favourable and it seems very inflexible and bureaucratic making it difficult to ramp things up and skip/miss any procedures.

We can protest for an enquiry once this shit storm has passed. There is no benefit to doing so at the moment, people just need to stay home!
Countries that have handled it well have a better health care system, higher taxes etc....this isn’t just a Torie issue this is a U.K. failing for decades.

Your post has made me rather angry. Some of your claims are unsubstantial and incredibly unhelpful. Do you really think this will sort out any of the difficulties? Comparing situations to other countries is useless. There is an arrogance apparent

One holy cow that no one can face up to it the enormous and beaurocratic machine that is our NHS, getting anything doen takes forever. It is not the best health care system in Europe by any means. There I said it, let the Gods smite me down ( oh except that its only not the best due to the bstard Tories, yeah right. Nothing has changed since 1965, who ever was in power

Germany has a mixed healthcare that relies heavily on insurance based system, unfortunately the years of treating the NHS as some sacred cow has meant that the a much needed overhaul (that has cross party support among the back benches) has meant the opportinuty has been lost.

Any attempt at reform and some ardent (usually labour) supporters automatically assume we are going to go down the full US route.

It is far more complex than just Tories underfunding it, thats a cheap political point scoring swipe and is probably why there is so much political apathy.

@NoMorePoliticsPlease
Some of your claims are unsubstantial and incredibly unhelpful

Did you mean unsubstantiated? and if so which claims are they?

This post was not designed to help anyone - it was posing a question for discussion which is what forums are for.

You do what invariably most do when there is a perceived "attack" against something or someone you support. You cannot see any criticism of the current government being anything other than partisan - I don't give 2 fucks who is in power - if they don't know their arse from their elbow and it costs lives I will raise it.

Couldn't agree more Justalurker - the German model really does show what can be done. But until the Labour party stop screaming privatisation every time the NHS is mentioned we are never going to have the system we actually need.
I am not in favour of just pumping more and more money into the NHS. There is far, far too much wastage in any government run organisation. My experience of Local Government has certainly informed my opinion on that. A serious look at how to get best value for the tax payer at the same time as providing a good service needs to be initiated.

Of course there can be criticisms of the way it was handled, but you need to separate those decisions made by our current leaders from those conditions that existed before the virus appeared. Letting the health service run down was a terrible idea, but that had already happened. (by all means criticise those who let that happen)

They are the same people!
This tory cabinet is largely made up of members of a longstanding (a decade) governing party.

They are the same people who cheered when nurses were denied a payrise. And have been systematicly running down the NHS.

They are the same people who ignored the results of a 2016 "war game" excersise which predicted almost this exact scenario. (Which Dom Raab today confirmed would never be fully published) .

They are the same people who cut our pandemic PPE stockpiles by 40% a few years ago to save money.

Don't worry OP - Plenty of people are RAGING about this and there will be a reckoning once it's all over.