It was fabulous to see so many people celebrating and defending the NHS. It was great to march with others from National Young Members Forum under the Young Members Banner.
After the demo was a rally in Trafalgar Square where we heard from Dave Prentis as TUC President and a host of other union leaders as well as front line staff, patients and NGO's like Breakthrough breat cancer and Oxfam.
Now this has all been very possitive, and I have been wanting a national demo for a while, but there does have to be some sober reflection. Having searched through the sites of the major papers and TV news websites, the media impact was very disappointing. Despite a great deal of effort by the press office there was very little coverage and what we did have was a little flat & dissapointing (much of it being the same). The demonstration was at great cost and great effort across the union, and overall I think it was worth it. However I do feel that the impact demonstrations can make has decreased over the past 5-10 years, to the point were you only get mass coverage if it's an issue the media is already covering anyway. Our ability to shape me media's agenda with events like this has been significantly diminished. We need to remember this in the future, as much as we remember the fun had on the demo.
7 comments:
I'm really annoyed that this event wasn't advertised, and unfortunately I missed it. I've been waiting a while to attend a pro NHS demo. Unison should do a better job at advertising these events and really try to involve more of the general public. There are many supporters of the NHS is out there. Better co ordination please.
I don't understand what you mean annon!
Lets see this Demo was advertised in U Mag (UNISON Mag that is sent to all members) and InFocus (UNISON Activists Mag). It was advertised on the UNISON website front page for well over a month! It was advertised on the TUC and NHS Together websites. I've had leaflets through my door and also the Region sent out loads of information plus it was advertised on many of their websites.
What more do you need?
Hi James,
Good report and also useful for raising how we take actions of this kind and their value. We must review these things and learn otherwise we end up with diminishing returns which only demoralise ourselves, let alone anyone else.
Yes, it was a better turnout than many of us expected and we had a really good time. But it was a drop in the ocean compared to the marches in the 1970s and 1980s. And that isn't just harking back to the 'good old days', it's about recognising that times, methods, resources, technology etc etc have changed and so we have to as well.
I know its anathema to many on the left - especially the nutty left! - but we've got to embrace sophisticated techniques. Even in the terms of the class-warrior, the boss class have got their act together on getting their message across and its not by marching around shouting they are right. We'e got to rise to that challenge.
Finally, a shame that the Alabama 3 didn't get a little longer to play, but what a good job they did on changing the lyrics to one of their songs:
If you woke up this morning
And the NHS was gone
You can't call the doctor
Got no credit on your telephone
Temperature is rising
Feel like you're going blind
Born on the wrong side of the tracks
With a blue moon in your eyes
If you woke up this morning
And the fever's comin' on
Can't buy no medicine
The Bupa plan's long gone
Sister Morphine she's gone AWOL
No admissions says the sign
If you ain't got the dollar boy
It's a blue moon in your eyes
Woke up this morning
The nightmare turned around
Bevan's dream a reality
Free healthcare every goddamn town
That nurse she was one in a million
She saved you with her smile
You're back on your feet again
No blue moon in your eyes
Woke up this morning
- You wanna be, you wanna be
The healthy ones tonight yes you know it - You just can't help yourselves
Unfortunately, the voices of the hard left are disproportionately heard in our union
Karen, anonymous was saying, I think fairly, that the demonstration wasn't very well publicised outside of UNISON - they were saying we should have involved more of the general public. That's a fair criticism, I think.
As for the press coverage the demo received, I think it's understandable that the media didn't give more space to the march, given that the attendance was on a par with League One football matches that day. If we want lots of press coverage we need 100,000 people on a march, not 7,000.
The idea that marches just don't work any more is peculiar. Look around the world at the movements which have changed history even in recent years (Latin America, for instance) and there have been huge public demonstrations. The lesson from Saturday isn't to have fewer demonstrations, but to have more of them, and build them properly. If UNISON hadn't resisted efforts by health workers to call for a demonstration last year, the NHS demo would have been at least ten times larger. And then you might have got your photo in the newspapers after all!
And Martin, there's another reason why the 'boss class' don't usually rely on demonstrations (although they did use the Countryside Alliance in exactly that way, not that long ago). There aren't very many of them! We, on the other hand, are millions strong, and part of the value of demonstrations and marches is that, done well, they enable ordinary people to feel the power of being part of such a large group.
Bloomin' eck, Nick! We pour all our energies into the demo to get just 7000 there and you say we want more of them? No.
As for not being publicised enough outside of UNISON - who are you blaming for that? We got in touch with our local hospital campaigns and had one of them represented on the march.
The plain truth is people don't want to come down to a march through London - even a really short one.
Just see how quickly the square emptied. We need to be building campaigns at the local level and be integral to those genuinely big events where you 10 or 15000 people coming out to defend a hospital.
And those big demos you are talking about in other countries are based on people's feeling they can remove their regime - not get a change in policy direction.
I sincerely hope you aren't that Nick on our Health Exec with that mindset!
I actually think Nick's right in that it would have been better to have a national demonstration this time last year in the midst of anger over deficits etc.
But then I also think that the celebrating aspect is vital. After years of significant investment in the NHS if we don't celebrate it and the improvements that brought; then our enemies on the right will use trade unions anger to undermine our NHS the 'look at all the extra investment and it's still rubbish, lets privatise' argument of the Mail and the Tories.
I think it shows why it was right to have regional action in March
We got lots of regional coverage
compared to national demo which got very little
If a national demo should have been held last year as suggested - why did people not have the guts and honesty to say
we dont think a national demo is going to work - lets cancel it ??
no, because a handful of Trots wanted to sell their papers
we could have given every person who turned up £100 and still matched the cost of publicity/demo etc
Lets have a bit of honesty, if people felt the demo should have been at the height of the anger then why did they not arguee to call it off ???
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