By God, Believe in Something - says actor Michael Sheen defending the NHS

The actor Michael Sheen, best known for playing Tony Blair in a series of TV dramas and the award-winning film The Queen, has delivered a passionate defence of the NHS against “bland” politicians in thrall to the market from both Conservative and Labour parties.

Speaking at a St David’s Day march to celebrate the NHS and its founder, Aneurin Bevan, on Sunday, Sheen approvingly noted Bevan’s “burning hatred for the Tory party” and attacked Margaret Thatcher’s infamous claim there is no such thing as society.

But his anger was also aimed at the timidity of Labour politicians and the party’s record in office.

Sheen, who played Blair in The Queen, The Deal and The Special Relationship, said British political leaders had a hidden agenda to privatise the NHS, despite what they claimed.

He said: “No one says they want to get rid of the NHS, everyone praises it ... But for decades now there has been a systematic undermining of it [the NHS’s] core values. This is beyond party politics. The Labour government arguably did as much damage to the NHS as any Tory or coalition-led one.”

Sheen, in a stirring speech delivered from a bandstand in a blustery, rainswept park in the Welsh town of Tredegar, Bevan’s birthplace, attacked the caution of Labour’s leaders and their lack of conviction.

He said: “In today’s political climate, where politicians are careful, tentative, scared of saying what they feel for fear ... all political parties drift into a morass of bland neutrality and the real values we suspect are kept behind closed doors. Is it any wonder that people feel there is little to choose between?”

He quoted Bevan saying that those who stayed in the middle of the road get run over.

Sheen appeared to plead directly to the Labour leadership. “You must stand up for what you believe, but first of all, by God, believe in something,” he said.

Sheen also attacked austerity and the political consensus about the effectiveness of market solutions. He asked: “Do we want to be a society that is exploitative, that sees people as commodities, as numbers, and mere instruments of profit? Or do we want to be a society where each person is recognised, where all are equal in worth and value – where that value is not purely a monetary one?”

He went on to stand up for those on benefits. “Do we want to be a society that is supportive, that is inclusive and compassionate, where it is acknowledged that not all can prosper, where those who are most vulnerable, most in need of help, are not seen as lazy or scrounging or robbing the rest of us for whatever they can get? Where we do not turn our backs on those facing hard times, we do not abandon them or exploit their weakness, because they are us.

“We leave no one behind, we only say we have crossed the finished line when the last of us does, because no one is alone and there is such a thing as society.”