Why don't more people protest?

I've been a socialist since becoming involved in the anti-Vietnam war campaign of the late 1960s and am now approaching 70, but have never felt so disillusioned as I feel today.

When this government first took office and announced the whole range of cuts and assaults on the welfare state, I didn't believe for one moment that, given the level of opposition, they would ever be able to implement it all. How wrong can you be?

In common with a handful of teachers, civil servants and socialists in general, we've held meetings, organised rallies and petitions and voiced our opposition, both collectively and individually.

I feel proud of our young people, particularly those involved with UK Uncut who've had the courage to defy authority.

I'm aware that there are other groups of campaigners throughout the country equally as active in opposing the cuts agenda, though unsurprisingly we've enjoyed very little parliamentary support from the official opposition. Here in Chester the local Labour party didn't even know of our campaign.

A few weeks ago I attended a rally outside the Royal Liverpool Teaching Hospital.

Liverpool, my home city, has a proud history of militancy and I expected to be greeted by thousands of fellow demonstrators assembling outside the hospital and blocking off the main road into the city centre.

Instead there were no more than a couple of hundred people, mostly fellow comrades I recognised from previous demos, with the rally not even big enough to justify a police presence.

I despair, I really do.

If people in general can't be motivated on such an issue as the very future of our NHS then I simply don't know where we go from here.

Geoffrey Williams
Chester