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Comment by dom96 | Hacker News Reader

The fact that it took a TV Show to make this blow up as much as it did really speaks to the state of the UK (and possibly other countries too). I remember hearing about this a few years ago, I remember being outraged by it, but what could I have done? Why did the people who are meant to be our leaders not do anything?

There are still other scandals out there that aren't getting the recognition they deserve (Infected Blood Scandal[1] being a big one but I'm sure there are others I'm not even aware of). So what can we do to ensure our politicians empower these campaigners instead of extinguishing them?

1 - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/10/infected-blo...

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Great question. We're talking about systemic 'deliberate avoidance' with so many of these mistakes. How can we legislate to make sure there are penalties for this kind of malicious inaction? Government's also have to take a huge proportion of the blame.

> Why did the people who are meant to be our leaders not do anything?

I had the same thought. A while ago I heard about a so-called "scandal" in passing, and didn't think of it much. I recently listened to the BBC podcast series, and I felt both sand and outraged. I had me thinking, "does it take a TV drama for something like this to be recognized?". Now every politician is behind it (finally). Where were all these guardians before? If I find myself in a similar situation, should a no-body like me expect a documentary to be made?

Agree. The politician's incentives don't seem very aligned at the moment. Also, feel like there are some shocking things going on with the water companies.

> Why did the people who are meant to be our leaders not do anything?

This is by design. A representative democracy is not intended to do what the people want. The representatives know the people are ignorant, obedient, comfortable, and scared. So the people just stand there mouths agape while the representatives do (or not do) whatever they want. The only consequence comes from other representatives. No representative fears the people. They're sheep.

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