Cambridge’s Hallowe’en parades for NHS and COP26

The weather was glorious and Cambridge came alive for a busy weekend which includes Hallowe’en, a pro-NHS/anti-privatisation demonstration, and the start of COP26 in Glasgow, billed as possibly humanity’s last chance at coordinating a global effort to slow climate change down.

King’s Parade hosted three protests: a sit-down action raising awareness of China’s persecution of Falun Gong followers, an action by Cambridgeshire Keep Our NHS Public members as part of a national day of pro-NHS protest in collaboration with the We Own It and Don’t Blow It campaigns, and an Extinction Rebellion Cambridge Youth protest against the sponsorship of COP26 by NatWest.

The protesters posted messages to Cambridgeshire MPs urging them to vote against the Health & Care Bill on its third reading in Parliament.

Campaigner Penny Morris said: “The Hallowe’en action is to protest against the increasing vampire-like attacks on our NHS by lifeblood-sucking private corporations and profiteers, such as Richard Branson.

“We are sending messages to our Cambridgeshire MPs, reminding them that polls consistently show that most constituents are opposed to any cutting of their NHS and that their majorities, some slim, will be threatened if they are seen as part of moves to reduce the NHS - hence‘Don’t Blow It’!

“We are calling upon all our MPs – Daniel Zeichner, Steve Barclay, Shailesh Vasa, Anthony Browne, Lucy Frazer, Jonathan Djanogly, Paul Bristow – to protect our NHS from the Health and Care Bill currently moving through parliament.

“We shall be posting these messages, including specially embroidered hankies from the Don’t Blow It campaign, in the tremendously iconic and beautiful Victorian-era post box – Penfold-style, with VR insignia, only 150 remain – by King’s College Chapel, an icon of Cambridgeshire.”

The NHS faces a radical remodelling if the Health & Care Bill is passed through Parliament. Where it is currently a national public service, delivered by public sector workers, it will become around 42 local, integrated care ‘systems’, each based on a business model. The implications for patients and staff are extremely serious.

England is to be divided into Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and partnerships responsible for bringing together local NHS and local government, such as social care, mental health and public health advice. These ICBs will replace clinical commissioning groups.

As it currently stands, the Bill allows for big business to sit on both ICBs and their constituent Integrated Care Partnerships, with private companies influencing decisions about what health and social care is available in an area, despite the fact that those very same companies will, in all likelihood, be seeking contracts to deliver health and care in that same area. Conflicts of interest, even cronyism, appear inevitable, say critics.

Hooda Abdullah, chair of Cambridgeshire Keep Our NHS Public, said after the event: “We know that people consistently say that they want a publicly funded NHS, freely available to all. They are aware of the dreadful effects on most Americans of their system of insurance for privately provided health care. But many seem to be unaware of what is happening now with the increasing extent of privatisation in our NHS. The NHS Corporate Takeover Bill will make this worse, breaking it up into 42 separate regions with a postcode lottery built-in. So I am worried that when my elderly 87 year old father visits me and needs care, there is no guarantee that the new Cambridge and Peterborough Integrated Care System, created by the Bill, will treat him because he lives outside this area.”

Daniel Zeichner, Cambridge’s MP, said of the Health and Care Bill: “This is the last possible time we need a top-down reorganisation of the NHS. Ministers should be explaining to patients how a structural reorganisation in the middle of the biggest crisis the NHS has ever faced will help children waiting on trolleys at Addenbrooke’s or pensioners in King’s Hedges unable to get a GP appointment. How will it radically improve cancer survival rates or help our amazingly dedicated NHS heroes deliver the quality mental health care many people desperately need and all of which have ballooned over the course of the pandemic?

“I will continue to oppose this bill but I firmly believe the real solution is to get a Labour government. You can’t trust the Tories with the NHS. It is crucial that we once again have ministers at the helm who truly believe in our precious NHS, safe in public hands, free at the point of use, and available to all.”

Meanwhile Extinction Rebellion (XR) Cambridge Youth were on Petty Cury protesting against NatWest’s sponsorship of COP26, and the Red Rebels’ ‘Silent and Solemn’ marchers also took to the streets (video below).

The climate breakdown campaign group moved from Petty Cury to the Natwest branch on Fitzroy Street, stopping along the way to talk with members of the public about COP. They encountered people enjoying the sunshine, including a group of Spanish tourists, a busy market and craft fair, and shops keen to open their doors to even the most casual of browsers.

The group said the purpose of the march is to discuss “the broader context of capitalism, colonialism and the climate crisis”.

A XR Cambridge Youth spokesperson said: “Is the presence of big businesses and banks a sign that they’re putting their money where their mouth is, or a warning that COP won’t address the root causes of the problem? What even is COP? Whose voices are heard there, who makes the decisions, and why does that matter?”

By way of marking Hallowe’en during these troubled times, Linton resident John Creedy came up with a novel pumpkin theme, recreating Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ on to a map of the Earth.

“COP26 is the only possible chance of changing the way we are going and, as Sir David Attenborough says, there’s an outside chance we can halt it, because if we don’t it is very probably the end of the human race,” he told the Cambridge Independent.

“The idea is humanity is screaming for change – and I find it interesting that the artist who painted ‘The Scream’, Edvard Munch, was Norwegian, and Greta Thunberg is Scandanavian. Perhaps there’s a message there!”