SOCPA, 42 days and the Department of Health

Have just returned from a successful demo outside Richmond House, the headquarters of the Department of Health. The Greens were out in force and our principle speaker, Derek Wall was interviewed by the mutlitude of press.

It seems that the police hadn't been told about the protest in advance and this was my first time breaking the law on protests within the vicinity of Parliament. Does that make me a terrorist or just an anachist? Anyway the police turned up quickly rather than detaining us all for the next 42 days they were happy for us to continue protesting for nearly an hour.

As any reader of this blog knows, we want an end to the creeping privatisation of the NHS and a return to public ownership. We don't want a big centralised monolith though, the NHS should be accountable to local government (I think it should be renamed the Local Health Service).

The event was organised by the Keep Our NHS Public campaign, and my thanks to Wendy and Alex who drive the campaign so effectively.