squizzler
Established Member
I am fortunate to have spent this pandemic in Jersey, Channel Islands. My local experience vis-a-vis reports coming in regarding anecdotes of travel in the UK, USA, gave rise to speculation that transport ridership is a barometer as to how confident the public are that their government has got things under control. On that metric, it would seem that people are not confident in the UK or USA government since their transport use remains heavily depressed. Many EU and Asian countries, on the other hand, have ridership back to normal or very close, indicating those populations have much greater faith in those in power. Here in Jersey, the bus ridership is close to recovered and corresponds with my own feeling that our government is containing the outbreak.
If one ponders that thought, it gives rise to a the possibility that the UK government messaging on transport usage represents an attempt to save face by observing existing trends and trying to announce it it as their own initiative, hardly a novel behaviour in politics. That would explain travel advice that was at such variance with the experience of the rest of the world, namely requesting people not to use transport networks to a much greater extent - and for a more prolonged spell after the 'lockdown'. They would know from their own opinion polling that the public were are aware of their incompetence and would abandon communal travel anyway. By making a public plea not to use transport, the government was able to portray the empty transport network as a sign of public compliance with government measures to fight the pandemic rather than the more likely reason - collapse of national morale in the face of their dysfunctional management of a health emergency.
If one ponders that thought, it gives rise to a the possibility that the UK government messaging on transport usage represents an attempt to save face by observing existing trends and trying to announce it it as their own initiative, hardly a novel behaviour in politics. That would explain travel advice that was at such variance with the experience of the rest of the world, namely requesting people not to use transport networks to a much greater extent - and for a more prolonged spell after the 'lockdown'. They would know from their own opinion polling that the public were are aware of their incompetence and would abandon communal travel anyway. By making a public plea not to use transport, the government was able to portray the empty transport network as a sign of public compliance with government measures to fight the pandemic rather than the more likely reason - collapse of national morale in the face of their dysfunctional management of a health emergency.
