March against NHS privatisation and Con-Dem government austerity

Photos and article by Redskye 17/10/2013

There was lots of interest from friends and contacts on going to this national demonstration.The unions put on coaches and the always reliable Merseyside Pensioners Association turned out in significant numbers. There were a lot of new and unaffiliated people who came down to Liverpool to try and get a coach seat over to Manchester for the march during the Tory Party conference.

One friend new to protests had her attempt to get to the coaches from the Wirral completely curtailed by public transport problems. Another friend, Mike, came over from St.Helens but hadn’t relied on public transport and arrived early. I spent most of the day with him. It was his first demonstration and he found it all very interesting.

For the last Saturday in September the weather was absolutely perfect. When the coaches arrived in Manchester I had a big decision, to multi-task or not to multi-task? I decided I wasn’t going to carry the heavy banner I was asked to bring and so I left it on the coach (no one was let down by the way). Thus I decided I would take photographs, try and document the day and go at my own pace which made the whole experience much more enjoyable and less stressful.

Off the coach and the first thing I hear is someone ranting about ‘Richard Branson and Virgin’ in a strong Manchester accent. At any other time and place we might think the guy had lost his marbles - but maybe not today? Then Batman appeared… but behind that mask was not Bruce Wayne - his identity remains a secret. Mike said to him “Phew, you’ll be hot in all that rubber gear!” With his ‘Batman vs Badman’ placard in one hand and a bottle in the other he marched off.

The whole march around Manchester appeared to be less of the traditional rush to get to the end point. I was able to speak to people without it being drowned out, deafened and tired by traditional SWP chants of “What do we want? When do we want it?” on multiple megaphones.

There were plenty of police, including those new light blue ‘liaison’ types who tend to rely on talking to people, so they don’t tend to have a heavy belt full of assault weapons. Our friend from the Wirral obviously hadn’t made it onto a coach so we made our way to the gathering point near the Museum Of Science and Industry.

There were various large organised blocks of marchers, which mostly included the trade unions, who were easily spotted due to the large inflatable balls floating above their heads, which were either yellow, red or even purple with their members decked out in matching colours.

Then there were the 57 varieties of left-wing parties and campaign groups selling their wares on numerous stalls along the way (perhaps Napoleon was right – "L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers.") or giving away leaflets or newspapers to anyone who had an empty hand on display.

Then there was Socialist this-that or the other Party, Communist parties a plenty with and without the hammer and sickle symbols. “Which ones are you? The weekly worker [newspaper] Communist Party?” “No!” was the reply; “We’re the Morning Star [daily newspaper] Communists”.

Then there was the Communist Party GB brackets (ML). However the hammer and sickle red flags (whichever brackets with or without or newspaper version it belonged to - can I join?) looked great, backlit by the autumn sun. A long banner pronounced “Britain needs Socialism!”

Estimates of the numbers on the march varied between 30,000 and a maximum of 100,000. Mike suggested it was well more than 50,000, having seen a fair few football match crowds himself. The rest of the march was made up of a wide variety of protestors and members of the public, including many fire officers from across the country with branch banners, numerous NHS campaigners protesting against closures and ongoing privatisation, many community groups from towns and cities across Britain and even Ireland, anti-Bedroom Tax protestors, anti-cuts campaigners, a brass band, Liverpool’s Socialist Singers, family groups, friends and individuals with their slogans on T-Shirts, personalised placards and numerous people making their voice heard and supporting their services and local communities.

What I found most interesting was talking with people along the route, like the Fire Brigade Union (FBU) member from South Yorkshire explaining the issues with retirement and pension rights, all of which made sense and were under attack by a government which uses the excuse of the deficit created by the bankers to attack the Fire Service nationwide, other workers, public services, jobs, benefit claimants and all workers standard of living.

As we passed outside the Tory Party conference people booed and made their voices heard. Unbeknown to me at the time, nearby on the tallest buildings, weren’t just police surveillance as was the case back in 2008 at the march outside the Labour Party conference at the same location, but high powered sniper rifles. Footage caught by marchers was uploaded to YouTube, and clearly shows a couple of large high-powered sniper rifles on a high building. Nnever before have I marched under the crosshairs of sniper rifles.

After passing the Tory Party conference arena the march continued on to the park where speakers were due to address the crowd, and later on the Liverpool band The Farm played. At times I was like a dog with a camera, if you can imagine such a thing. “Ooh… there’s a picture!” I found it hard not to be snap happy most of the afternoon.

As we walked down the long Oxford Road, passing the now abandoned BBC Manchester studios, many people started to leave the march. Large gaps opened up and it began to look somewhat looser and less of a march. I imagine many tired marchers didn’t make it to the park. I was extremely tired as I noticed our coach parked down a side road. I had walked far enough without refreshment or rest.

On reflection a number of marchers looked exhausted when they later clambered back onto our coach home. For many the full distance of the march was too much.

One thing mostly absent from the streets of Manchester were television crews, though passing close to the Tory party conference there was a large BBC TV outside broadcast van there to cover it.

Was there any TV news coverage on Sunday evening? There was reported to have been no arrests, though later it was reported there were two, so a peaceful mass demonstration was not considered ‘news-worthy’.

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Sorry Comments Closed

Comment left by Tracey Dunn on 18th October, 2013 at 6:43
Good article and great photos.

Comment left by Redskye on 19th October, 2013 at 0:04
Here's the link to the Police Marksmen up on the tower block in Manchester on Saturday 28th September. People were surprised to hear about Police snipers overseeing the demo'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_bJcJrzaWQ