I seem to recall the Conservative government was quite happy to encourage people to stand outside their homes clapping for the NHS - and made themselves visible doing the same.
Likewise, rather than pay NHS staff a pay increase that offers some recompense for the failure to keep their salaries in line with inflation, and to recognise in a meaningful way the hard work and risks they undertook during the pandemic, the organisation is awarded a George Cross.
Both of these examples are, I believe, gestures rather than concrete, practical actions.
Yet Priti Patel and others label "taking the knee" as "gesture politics" and decry it.