I will be marching in London.
Those marching will have many different particular issues they want to hihglight. For me the biggest single issue I have is the assault on the NHS. Yes the cuts are way too far and too fast and put our economic growth at risk – ask George Osbourne who has had to downgrade his growth forecast yet again, due to his ludicrous economic policy. But privatising our NHS is not about economic illiteracy, it is an attack on the British way of life. There’s a really good piece by a midwife here on why she is marching.
Having said that why actually march? Well there comes a time when signing online petitions and making speeches in council meetings isn’t enough – yes 1/2 a million signed up to save the forests, but now any petition which is smaller than that will lose it’s impact. And it’s easy to ignore a number on a piece of paper. When Cameron, Osborne and Clegg look at the news and there are seas of people on the streets of the capital it must have a bigger impact.
I thought seriously about not going. We have local elections to fight, I am teaching the next day (yes I know that’s a Sunday) and I am not convinced that it will make the government actually listen, but the government has u-turned before and not every government minister is ideologically driven to attack public services.
I’ll be on the Waterloo train – say hi if you are there!
