Getting into and out of the mess that Britain is in

Photograph: Matt Dunham/PA

In the last week or so, your opinion articles have been pretty depressing as, one after the other, they have drawn readers’ attention to the many ways in which our government has failed to deal with the pandemic. George Monbiot’s piece (What’s as scary as Covid? The fact our leaders still have no plan to control it, 13 January) powerfully highlights the mess this country is in.

But we do need to ask ourselves: how it is that the electorate was persuaded to vote for austerity and increasing privatisation of public services, when these policies have caused such an adverse effect on our ability to cope with the pandemic? And why did so many people vote to be governed by a privately educated elite who consistently lie and make promises they can’t keep, and who seem incapable of making good decisions and planning in advance?

Until we have addressed these questions, we will be stuck with an incompetent government and an increasingly damaged society.

So, Guardian readers: once the pandemic is over, how can we start to build a society with first-class public services, decent housing and a fair income for all? And how do we persuade more of the electorate to vote for a party whose policies will enable such a society to be achieved?
Mary Barber
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

• George Monbiot’s article brought to mind observations by Geoffrey Vickers about the two absurdities into which human beings often fall when faced with crisis: “the absurd speed with which we come to accept as normal almost any outrageous condition once we have actually lived with it”, and “the absurd slowness with which we come to accept as real any impending change which has not yet happened, however near and certain it may be”.
Charlie Mason
Hermon, Pembrokeshire