Britain's workers unite

The mass demonstrations rocked cities from Glasgow to London as part of the European TUC No to Austerity day of action - also backed by millions of workers protesting in Brussels, Athens and Barcelona against their own government's attacks on pensions, wages and jobs.

GMB, Unite and PCS union members blockaded council and government offices in Brighton, Southampton and Derby, while Unison health workers protested outside hospitals in Durham and Newcastle.

Unison organiser Clare Williams emphasised that the Tory-led coalition's argument for swingeing public service cuts "is completely misleading."

"There are alternative ways to reduce the public spending deficit," she said and pointed out that a clampdown on tax evasion by the rich, plus the introduction of the "Robin Hood" tax on financial transactions by wealthy stockbrokers, could bring in more than £150 billion a year.

"But the fact is, these public spending cuts are ideological and the economic arguments the coalition claims are merely a political smokescreen," she added.

TUC leader Brendan Barber also backed the call for a fairer tax system as he highlighted how Britain's "poorest 10 per cent will be hit 13 times harder by the government's cuts than the richest 10 per cent."

Northern TUC regional secretary Kevin Rowan stressed that north-east England, which already has Britain's highest percentage of workless households at one in four, would be even harder hit by the looming attacks on public services.

"We are already seeing people losing their jobs and there is a real risk that the scale and speed of cuts will mean that there is a significant risk to the economy in this region," he warned.

At the opposite end of the country, Brighton Unison branch secretary Alex Knutsen insisted that the protesters' aim was "to educate people about how serious these cuts will be and how they will affect the front-line services they use everyday.

"These cuts are avoidable, and we want the government to listen to that message," he said.