The Conservative Party have been in power for 12 years. When they gained power they pursued a policy of "austerity" to reduce the size of the govt and local govt, reduce the funding of nationally funded things, and to replace such govt owned things with "public private partnerships". This can be seen everywhere from social care (private care homes), schools (academy schools), transport (where area contracts are bid for by private companies), etc.

With health specifically the goal is to have more privately owned profit making companies in the NHS. The NHS as it is constructed doesn't allow for this. But for the Conservatives this opportunity for them and their backers. For the public, there is a national pride in the NHS.

So we entered the pandemic with an already under-funded and stretched health care system.

Much to the chagrin of those in charge though... this has not led to any calls for privatisation. Nor has it led to a boom in people taking out private health care cover.

It turns out that the British stiff upper lip response to something they're nationally proud of is that they'd rather die than embrace health privatisation. So we're in uncharted territory... the playbook that had allowed the privatisation of almost everything else isn't working now, it's just killing people.