Strong public indignation with Govt post Covid plans!

There, is generally now, a fast-growing number of people, who are indignant and outspoken in the way their own government is manipulating and forcing through its own political post-Covid plans that directly affects their lives. Already, opinion polls against plans announced are riding high, with an online petition growing and well into the thousands against one of the forced government measures of closing Line Wall Road to general motorists. There is also increasing support for a public demonstration to be organised at some point!

In a Well-Functioning Democracy

Citizens have a right to know the policies and activities of their government. In a well-functioning democracy, the government should provide reliable and timely information to the public. Effective communications between the government and the public is especially important where major changes are in store.

To reach large numbers of the population, governments everywhere rely heavily on radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The media filters and analyses information to the citizens, consequently governments should take into account this “intermediary role” of the media when they seek to communicate with the population. I don’t think that role is always there?

More than ever, the credibility of the government and the acceptance of public policies depends on the degree to which it is open with the media. A relationship, with a free flow of information between government and the media is necessary from the inception of a public policy. When the public is allowed to understand the development of a policy. It is then easier for government to build support and implement it and underlying objectives - such as some reform to our way of life, habits and the effects on daily life. Recent Government announcements defy any of that type of criteria!

Daily Covid Briefings a Huge Communication Platform With a Big Audience

Obviously, I’m coming to something with the three opening paragraphs, particularly, how the government, probably recognised early in the Covid daily press briefings which ended yesterday with 61 briefings, was a huge public communication platform. With a large television audience and press attentively assembled. With people, holed up in their homes in front of the television desperate for information about the virus.

Though most of the press briefings have mainly concentrated on the virus. It’s true to say, briefings gradually became, contradictory, confusing and a disorientated Covid related experience. Though all became clear, when Covid briefings descended into an unashamed political party talk shop on a national viewing scale. Where the governments hidden non-Covid polices’ which had been strategically kept from the people of Gibraltar, supposedly, all in the name of the Pandemic Crisis, including the Welfare of the Nation and a Return to the New Political Normal was suddenly stuffed down our necks!

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19-05-2020 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR