Keep our NHS PFI NO W HERE TO STAY!
The aim was to prevent any central focus that might encourage other regions to converge on the capital and create a de facto national demonstration.
This was not enough to stop other local protests in London, with rallies and marches in Brent, Enfield, Hackney, Southwark and Carshalton: but a major opportunity to strengthen campaigns across the capital and put the health unions on a fighting footing were missed.
One inevitable result of this experience has been to rekindle debate on the need for the unions to give a lead and call a national demonstration this summer to build and strengthen the movement to defend our
Many had argued that March 3 should have been called as a national demonstration, and some left currents, most notably the Socialist Party, have become almost obsessive about the issue, speaking of almost nothing else in meetings, and denouncing anyone who does extensive resources of union branches and regions.
In fact the idea is gaining ground: UNISON's Health Service Group has voted in favour of a march, although prolonged discussions have not yet resulted in date being set.
The real danger is that if campaigners try to go around the official union structures and call their own protest they will simply let the union leaders off the hook, giving them an easy pretext to take their distance from the campaign and withhold and serious support.
March 3 showed that even with the unions professing support it is a big fight to build large-scale protests: with their tacit or explicit opposition it would be far harder.
Public anger is simmering, but to mobilise tens of thousands of people in the streets of London more is needed than simply naming a date.
Hard work, extensive publicity, subsidised travel, and organisation are all required to turn out the scale of contingents that could really make a difference: all this means money is needed on a scale well beyond the reach of Keep Our NHS Public or smaller
But those who focus solely on demanding a national march ignore a vital dimension -the ongoing fight.
As and when it the national demo does take place, the key issue will not so much be the event that day, as the campaign building for it and the local follow-through to keep pressure on NHS managers, MPs and councillors and resist any planned cuts, closures and privatisation.
In that sense even a date fixed in September - for a march on Labour conference would be better than no date at all, since it would give a clear period to build up the maximum mobilisation, and put the heat under Gordon Brown at his first conference as leader.