cherry-picking | >Re-PHOTO

End NHS Privatisation, Kurds Call For Democracy: On Friday 4th November 2016 I photographed two unrelated protests. Opposite Parliament a rally supported the second reading of Labour MP Margaret Greenwood’s NHS Bill to end the creeping privatisation of our National Health Service, and from there I joined hundreds of Kurds as they marched through Parliament Square on their way to protest at the Turkish Embassy follow the arrest of leaders and MPs of the pro-Kurdish oppposition in Turkey earlier that morning.

Bill to reverse NHS Privatisation

Old Palace Yard, Westminster

End NHS Privatisation, Kurds Call For Democracy - 2016 — *Larry Sanders, Green Party Health spokesperson and Bernie’s brother speaking*

Labour MP Margaret Greenwood’s NHS Bill which proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service and to prevent further marketisation at the hands of the Tories stood little chance of actually being debated that day as it was low on the list. Of course had no chance of ever becoming law against a government and opposition majority including many MPs receiving donations or having interests in private healthcare.

The privatisation of NHS services was taking place under New Labour before the Tories came to power in the 2010 coalition but was accelerated by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 which allowed NHS services to be contracted out to ‘any qualified provider‘, including private companies – and increasingly Clinical Commissioning Groups have been under pressure to outsource.

In 2016 Sustainability and Transformation Plans were being developed in private for 44 areas covering the whole of England to be in place by Christmas. The NHS England director of strategy Michael McConnell had said that these STPs offer private sector companies an “enormous opportunity” but critics said that they could mean the end of the NHS as we have known it.

Private healthcare is parasitic on the NHS. Their contracts cherry-pick the more straightforward areas of provision – such as my annual diabetic eye photographs – while leaving the more difficult areas to the public sector. And where complications do happen, the private NHS badged providers are quick to pass on patients to the real NHS as they do not have the trained staff or resources to deal with them.

Only the NHS is there to cope with accidents and emergencies – the private sector offers no A&E services. And it is only the NHS that trains the doctors and other medical staff that keeps the private hospitals and the services that private healthcare contracts from the NHS running.

Of course there is no chance of Parliament reversing this trend while private healthcare makes huge donations to politicians to pursue their interests. ‘Every Doctor ‘ reported in April 2025 that “The Labour Party received four times as much in donations from donors connected to private healthcare than all other political parties combined … in 2023-2025“. Health Minister Wes Streeting alone has received “almost £167,000 from individuals and companies with ties to the private healthcare sector.” The total amount of donations to politicians from people and companies involved in private healthcare in that two year period was more than £2.7 million.

On Byline Times you can read a 2021 investigation “The Conservative Party’s Private Healthcare Patrons” which explores “the financial ties between Conservative MPs and private health companies“. It’s a remarkable list of MPs and Tory Peers with details of their connections and the amounts involved.

Although the Byline Times article is careful to point out that “There is no evidence that any of the companies have benefited due to their relationships with Conservative MPs or donors” it is hard to believe that these and the other donations have had no influence on the increasing takeover of NHS services by private healthcare companies. And although there do seem to be clear possibilities of conflicts of interest so far as I am aware no MP or Peer has ever abstained from a vote because of this.

The MP’s code of conduct is extremely weak on this matter, and simply relies on MPs to do the right thing – “Members must base their conduct on consideration of the public interest. They must avoid conflict between personal and public interest. If there is any conflict between the two, they must resolve it at once in favour of the public interest.”

This is one of the areas which have caused the current high levels of distrust of politics and politicians. We need much tighter controls on lobbying, an end the system which allows large political donations in cash or kind to MPs, and ensure that MPs who have conflicts of interest abstain from voting on these issues. MPs are paid to represent their constituents, not healthcare companies and not their own financial interests.

More about the protest on My London Diary at Bill to reverse NHS Privatisation

Kurds march for Peace & Democracy

I left the protest at Parliament when over 500 Kurds marched into Parliament Square protesting noisily against the arrest early that morning of two leaders of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), along with at least 11 MPs.

They sat down briefly on the road in front of Parliament on their way to the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square.

At Belgrave Square police tried to stop them and keep them on the opposite side of the road to the Embassy, but they simply walked around the police line and crowded on the pavement and road in front of the Embassy door.

Eventually the police abandoned their attempts to push the protesters back and simply stood several lines deep in front of the doorway while the protest continued.

The rain came down heavily and we were all getting wet but the noisy protest and speeches continued. Eventually the protesters moved away from the embassy and I left them.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Kurds march for Peace & Democracy.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Keep our NHS Public: Saturday 3rd March 2007 saw protests around the country against the increasing privatisation of the National Health Service and I managed to cover several of these events in London, a march in Camberwell followed by a march from Whitechapel to Hackney Town Hall where they joined others who had marched in Hackney. After finishing my coverage of these events I photographed the Hare Krishna in Soho and then went to the Photographers Gallery.

Keep our NHS Public - 2007 — *The march on its way to the Maudsley Hospital*

Here I’ll publish what I wrote back then on My London Diary with the usual corrections to spelling and capitalisation. Reading what I wrote below again now I think I was far too generous to New Labour. Although some MPs may have been well-intentioned I think the policies were largely driven by those with personal financial interests in private healthcare and other sectors that would profit from them. The NHS (and us) are still suffering from their actions and I have little confidence in the changes the current Labour government is now making.

Keep our NHS Public – Saturday 3rd March 2007

Although health workers and other trade unionists had called for a national demonstration in London, the union bosses declined to organise one, perhaps not wanting to embarrass an already beleaguered Labour government. What took place instead was a whole series of local demonstrations – including at least 7 in the Greater London area – across the whole country.

The overall effect was perhaps to make it more impressive, and certainly it seemed to get more coverage in the media that might otherwise have been expected, although there were few reporters and no TV crews at the three events I photographed (for some reason they preferred Sheffield.)

Largely well-intentioned attempts to improve the health service have failed to deliver as they should, with many services being cut. Part of this has been caused by a dogmatic insistence on making use of private finance with results that range from fiasco to farce, inevitably accompanied by long-term financial loss.

A second disastrous dogma has led to bringing in private enterprise to do the simple work at artificially inflated prices (they even get paid for work they are not doing) which has the secondary result of making the NHS services appear more expensive, as they are left to deal with the trickier cases.

*Kate Hooey holds the main banner with others on the Camberwell march*

Further blows to our national health service have been through the predictably disastrous IT projects; as well as going millions over budget, these have largely failed to deliver. Add the proliferation of management and expensive consultants, along with crazed assumptions in negotiating doctors’ pay leading to an unbelievably generous offer, and it it hardly surprising that the whole system is in financial chaos.

The government clearly lacks a real commitment to the kind of National Health Service many of us grew up with, run for the benefit of the people rather than to make money for healthcare corporations. The health service certainly needed a shake-up to reduce bureaucracy and eliminate wasteful practices, but instead new layers of both have and are being added.

*Outside the Maudsley Hospital – reading the letter which a delegation then delivered*

I started off in Camberwell, and had time for a short walk before the speeches and march began. It wasn’t a huge event, but there was strong support from those in the service, from patients and from pensioners, as well as local MP Kate Hooey. From Camberwell Green the march went down to the Maudsley Hosptial where a letter was handed in and I got on a bus and left for Bethnal Green and Hackney.

Going up the Cambridge Heath Road in the centre of Bethnal Green, I saw the march from the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel to Hackney in the distance. Unfortunately the bus was held up in the traffic behind it, taking almost five minutes to reach the next stop before the driver would open the doors and let me off. Some things were a lot easier with the Routemasters.

This was a smaller march than that from Camberwell, and after a few minutes I felt I’d photographed all I could, so I ran ahead and caught a bus for the centre of Hackney, arriving there just a couple of minutes before the Hackney march, which had come from Homerton Hospital, had returned to the town hall. I photographed them arriving and then the rally that ensued.

The Hackney march was a little larger, perhaps around two hundred, and there were quite a few speakers, including local councillors and representatives from the various organisations that had helped to organise the march.

A big cheer went up as the march from Whitechapel arrived, swelling the numbers in the square at the town hall.

Among the better known speakers taking part were George Galloway, whose speech lived up to his usual high standards of wit and common sense. Lindsay German, a hackney resident well known for her work for ‘Stop The War’ also spoke with feeling on the issues of health and the NHS. Several of the other speakers were old enough to have known the problems before the health service was set up.

As the meeting began to wind down, I caught a bus to Bethnal Green and then the tube to Tottenham Court Road. Just to the north of Soho Square I got to the Hare Krishna Temple just as the annual Gaura Purnima [Golden Full Moon] procession was arriving back from its tour around the area.

*Churchill and an entrance to a stairway with a red light*

From there I went to the Photographers’ Gallery to have a good look at this year’s photography prize contestants. I hope the prize goes to one of the two photographers on the shortlist, Philippe Chance or Anders Petersen. [Neither won.] Walking through Soho and Westminster I took a few more pictures.

More pictures on My London Diary.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Tag: cherry-picking

Keep our NHS Public – 2007

Keep our NHS Public – Saturday 3rd March 2007