Fifty thousand people marched on the Conservative party conference in Manchester yesterday in defence of public services ‘under attack’ from David Cameron’s government.

The city centre became a sea of colour – as protesters sent a clear message to the prime minister to scrap spending cuts and drop NHS reforms.

Blistering sunshine made for a carnival atmosphere as the march made its way from Liverpool Road, along Deansgate and past the conference centre and down Oxford Road to a rally in Whitworth Park.

Organisers hailed the high-than-expected turnout, with Greater Manchester Police estimating that more than 50,000 turned up – at least 10,000 more than expected.

GMP said that the protest – perhaps the largest ever dealt with by the force – had passed off peacefully in the most part, with just two arrests for breaches of the peace.

Some delegates entering the conference site complained of being verbally abused – or even spat at – by anti-Conservative protesters.

Leaders of the anti-cuts movement – including Labour shadow health secretary Andy Burnham MP and Len McCluskey of the Unite union – gave rousing speeches against the coalition government’s reforms to the health service, which they said would lead to more privatisation.

Mr Burnham, MP for Leigh, described the march as an ‘unbelievable show of action for the best health service in the world’. Pledging that a Labour government would repeal the NHS reforms, Mr Burnham said it was an ‘incredible message of solidarity’ to health service staff who were ‘under attack’ from the government. He said:?“What a message you have sent today to an arrogant, out-of-touch prime minister.

“David Cameron, are you listening? You have never been given permission to put the National Health Service up for sale. That’s the message coming out of this rally today.”

Police, who consulted unions and other groups before the march in a bid to ensure it passed off peacefully, heaped praise on protesters for their good behaviour.

Chief Supt John O’Hare said: “We worked really closely with organisations to ensure we could facilitate people who did come to protest in a peaceful manner to support their causes and they did so peacefully and lawfully.

“We would like to thank them for doing that. In the scheme of things with 50,000 people in Manchester two people arrested is insignificant. However, it does just take one person to cause major problems when you are dealing with a breach of security.”

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He added that the march had ‘set the tone’ for the rest of the conference – which ends on Wednesday with a speech by Mr Cameron.

Retired council worker Jamie Lang, 57, said: “I’m here to oppose the gradual privatisation of the NHS. I was forced to take early retirement because of the cuts.”

Comment: Tom Brooks-Pollock

Organisers of yesterday’s anti-cuts march could hardly have dreamed for better weather – or for a better turnout.

Despite the seriousness of many of the messages, the atmosphere was mostly little short of buoyant as 50,000-plus protesters basked in blistering sunshine. March bosses had hoped for 40,000.

Every strand of the British left was seemingly there – every union under the (rather intense) sun, the Socialist Workers Party, Greens, Communists.

I spoke to marchers who had made the early-morning coach trip from London, Norwich, Nottingham, Sheffield and Scotland. The variety of different groups on the march mirrored the wide range of different causes on show.

Many unionists marched to ‘Save the NHS’ from perceived Tory-led privatisation and cuts; others, such as The People’s Assembly, were attacking austerity in general; there were even a good few opposing the badger cull. This served to muddy the message – what were they actually asking David Cameron, already in Manchester, to do?

If the aim is to reverse the cuts then that’s not going to happen – even under a change of government. The better-than-expected turnout, however, was as much the result of the Conservatives’ enduring unpopularity in huge swathes of the country – and shows how hard it will be for Cameron to stay in p