Having just read Charlie Booker's piece in the Guardian today http://bit.ly/FPH7V8 I was left feeling depressed by the seeming inevitability of the demise of the NHS as we have known it and the consequent ever increasing privatisation of the services in provides. Recent history should tell us that once government starts off down a path if there is an inevitable final consequence it will be arrived at. Just look at tuition fees. In 1998 when Labour shamefully introduced them at "only" £1,000 a year some of us knew that once the Tories got in that would rise rapidly. We didn't have to wait for a real Tory government for them to rise rapidly though. First the Blair version of conservatism raised them to £3,000, despite promising not to, and then the ConDem version raised them to £9,000.

So now we have the NHS bill that is only intended to "improve" the way NHS works. Nonsense. This is the privatisation of the NHS and it will inevitably end up with a system where the more money you have the greater access to health care you will have. Already the rich can get quicker treatment by going private. In future the best care will only be available by going private. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. The “free market” (that is the market that is free as long as you have power and wealth) does not make altruistic or even long-term decisions. It makes decisions that are based on short term gain for its primary stakeholders. In the NHS the patients are an important primary stakeholder. In a privatised health system they are replaced by the shareholders. It is the perfect example of why the “free” market is one of the most destructive notions ever devised by people.

My mother worked in the NHS as a nurse and midwife, my grandmother was a huge supporter of the suffragettes. My mother would have been outraged by this bill and my grandmother would have been on the streets. Over the past 30 years and more I have marched, organised meetings, organised campaigns, worked as a campaigner for 10 years and supported cause after cause. So why, as the NHS burns, am I sitting on my arse? I think like millions of others I have been seduced by the notion that online activism can replace offline mobilisation. I think that the course of the NHS bill proves that to be at best a partial truth. I have joined Facebook groups, Tweeted about it, signed the 38 degrees petitions and sent web-generated letters to my MP. So have millions of others but the passage of this bill shows that this is not a replacement for getting off of one’s arse and getting out on the streets and I am guilty of not doing that.

Online action makes us feel that we are doing something and it is an essential ingredient of modern campaigning but it alone on major issues like this will not replace physical action. Yes there have been protests on the streets but nothing like there should have been. Yes there have been online petitions and letters but what was needed was to augment that with stalls on the street, huge marches, lobbying of MPs in their surgeries and direct action to raise the profile of the campaign ever higher. The country is opposed to this bill but that opposition has not been effectively mobilised to prevent its passage through parliament. There have been some modifications but the essence of the bill remains the same. It is the start of a process that those of us that love the NHS will look back on as the beginning of a very slippery slope.

Leni sets off on her travels this week! She will be keeping in touch via some kind of blog. Maybe even via Posterous!