The Socialist 18 October 2017

Tories torn - bin them now

Tories torn - bin them now

Schools "can't go any further" - stop the cuts: set deficit budgets now

Young people being strangled by debts

Tories scrap the NHS pay cap: now fight for real-terms pay rises!

Obesity epidemic: end food market anarchy

What we saw

Royal Mail bosses block strike - back postal workers

PCS ballots members on the pay cap

Nationalise to save jobs at BAE Systems

Striking back against sackers' charter at Leeds Uni

North London hospital workers fight cuts and job losses

Unite local government sector plans strike ballot

Salford Unison condemns pay cuts

Russia, October 1917: When workers took power

October 1917 reviews: 'More bright than any heaven'

October 1917 centenary pull-out and poster

No cuts - hands off King George A&E!

Can you donate to the Socialism 2017 appeal?

Uprising to save the NHS!

Hundreds turn out for rally aimed at removing west Wales Tory MP

Sheffield Labour council threatens peaceful protesters with prison

Socialist Students 'welcome' Hillary Clinton to Swansea

Campaign against political repression in Hong Kong

Powerful picture of the Port Talbot steel workers' struggle

Conference on state spies: who's watching who?

'Dazzling' Bad Art show points to socialist future

PO Box 1398, Enfield EN1 9GT

020 8988 8777

[email protected]

Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/967/26316

Search the site	Printable version

Home | The Socialist 18 October 2017 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | Audio | PDF | ebook

No cuts - hands off King George A&E!

Demonstrating against the proposed closure of King George A&E in east London, 14.10.17, photo by Mary Finch (Click to enlarge)

Scott Jones, East London Socialist Party

People queued up outside Ilford town hall to sign the Socialist Party's petition to save King George A&E in east London on 14 October as campaigners marched to voice opposition to its closure.

The plans would mean the loss of 240 acute beds, which would be a disaster for the one million people in the area.

Kicking off the day of action in Central Park, Dagenham, an ex-Ford Dagenham worker said there needed to be marches like this

everywhere to save the NHS. In contrast the Labour leader of Barking and Dagenham council summed up the attitude of the local Blairites saying: "This isn't about politics"!

In reality, the decision is definitely a political one. A combination of the Tory government's £22 billion cuts through so-called 'sustainability and transformation plans' (STPs) and private finance initiatives (PFI) - expanded under the Blair/Brown Labour governments and carried on by successive Tory-led governments - are bleeding the NHS white.

The cost of building the nearby Queen's Hospital in Romford through PFI has bankrupted the Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS trust and that's why King George's A&E is being axed.

We need a mass movement of health workers and communities linked to a political alternative to save the NHS.

The Socialist Party put forward these demands on the day and was supported by campaigners and the public alike.

Our placards were snapped up, we sold 55 copies of the Socialist paper and raised over £80 in fighting fund.

At a meeting in Redbridge Town Hall at the end of the march the organisers thanked us for our support.

In this issue

What we think

Tories torn - bin them now