At least 50,000 people yesterday took to the streets of Manchester to march against the privatisation of the NHS.
The TUC-organised march, which police estimated was a mile long, attracted almost twice as many protestors as expected. Greater Manchester Police said it was one of the city’s largest every demonstrations, with only two arrests made.
Speaking at the rally in Whitworth Park at the end of the march, TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “In the last three months alone 21,000 NHS employees have lost their jobs, and those nurses, doctors and other health professionals that remain feel that no-one is listening to them and that they are being asked to achieve more with less. As a result morale is at rock bottom.
“This is no way to run our most important, most cherished national institution. Those who sacrificed so much during World War Two to build a better future for themselves and their families didn’t want this.
“High-quality healthcare should be available for all according to need, not the ability to pay. Today is about joining together to deliver a clear message to the Conservative Party conference just down the road – our NHS is not for sale, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. We won’t let this government destroy what has taken generations to build.”
So many coaches arrived in Manchester for the event there was not enough room for them to park, leading police to take the unusual step of stopping them on dual carriageways outside the city centre to allow protestors to disembark.
Protestors were then given directions to the end of the march and told to ring their coach driver at the end of the event to discover where their coach has been parked.
The variety of trade union banners revealed people had come from all over the UK to take their message to the Tory Conference. As marchers passed the ‘ring of steel’ surrounding the conference venue, they booed and hissed at the Conservative members inside who were believed to have been watching a video about Margaret Thatcher at the time.
Protestors were particularly angry at the conference’s slogan: ‘For hard working people’. One protestor said: “If any Tory was brave enough to look out of the windows, they’d see plenty of hard-working people walking past outside.”
Apart from when the marchers went past the conference venue, the mood was one of fun, with children walking alongside parents and grandparents, and members of different unions mingling and sharing jokes with one another. Many were wearing fancy dressing, attired as doctors or nurses.
But under-pinning the relaxed atmosphere was a mood of determination that the government should not be allowed to privatise the NHS – a mood captured by UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis, who said: “The Tories came to power promising ‘no more top-down reorganisations’, with Prime Minister David Cameron personally assuring the electorate: ‘I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS’.
“What did we get?” he asked, before citing the losses to frontline staff that the health service is now facing, with over 5,000 nurses’ posts alone having gone.
He continued: “It’s a race to the bottom with companies offering up savings they can only meet by slashing the workforce and driving down quality.”
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey continued the theme, saying: “David Cameron has lied about the NHS and continues to hoodwink us about the scale and pace of NHS privatisation. In 2010, he told the people of Britain that the NHS was safe in the Tories’ hands.
“But since then, he has forced through a £3bn upheaval – without a peep about this is his manifesto, nor a shred of evidence that it would deliver better care.
“Sixty-five years ago, people had the courage to fight for a new and radical alternative. It was the bravest, most humane vision a nation could have for itself.
“We must make certain that the NHS is at the top of the political agenda at the next general election. Maintaining the NHS will always be a difficult task; there will always be new challenges.
“Its survival depends on one thing, and one thing alone: if there are people with the political will to fight for it. And I say to private healthcare, you had better not get too comfortable – for this is our NHS and we will take it back.”
Coronation Street actor Julie Hesmondhalgh and shadow health minister Andy Burnham also spoke at the rally, which closed with Peter Hooton from The Farm singing ‘All Together Now’.
