Tratalgar Square Ctte against cuts in the NHS Supported by NALGO, NUS. SMA AUEW, Sheffield Dist.Ctte, CLPs, Manchester TC, etc all private practice Called by the National Co-ordinating been higher. The 25 April demonstration against cuts in the National Health Service can and should be a real show of organised working class opposition to the cuts that the Labour Government is imposing on an already sick and declining health service. Coming at a time when the Labour Government is about to announce legislation which will enshrine private practice in the NHS for ever — as well as allowing it to flourish freely outside - the demonstration can be a real slap in the face for the treacherous right-wing leaders.
The forces that march behind the slogans of the NCC must be mobilised in a fight to put those demands into action. The NCC calls for an immediate cash injection of £1,000 million. It demands a sliding scale of social expenditure. It wants the abolition of all secret deals and therefore insists that all the books be opened for the inspection of the workers movement. Correctly rejecting the idea of some "impartial' Royal Commission investi gating the NHS, the NCC counters by calling for a workers enquiry.
Such a programme is not only necessary in the NHS - the fight for it has to be extended right across the public sector and into private industry as well. By building an independent working class resistance to the attacks on the NHS, the NCC has charted the way forward. It is showing in practice the type of programme and organisation that the working class needs if it is to break form the treacherous class collaborationist policies of the Labour leaders and the trade union bureaucracy.
The NCC should spell out to all those mobilised for the 25 April demonstration the need to take that programme into the campaign being fought against unemployment. The savage cuts being perpetrated in health, education, and the social services cause unemployment and wastage. At a time when more hospitals are needed, when more schools are requirea and more houses should be built, the unemployment figures have never By giving full and unstinting support to the 26 May day of action and raising the demand for a programme of public works, the NCC can take the campaign another important step forward.
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STOP the NHS cuts Hyde Park to