Britain

On Saturday 4th December, over 2000 trade unionists, students, and
activists braved freezing temperatures and marched through the streets
of Norwich as part of the Norfolk Coalition Against the Cuts campaign.
Alan Waters, a Norwich councillor, said it was one of the biggest
protest marches the city had seen for several years. Despite the cold
weather, the atmosphere was hot, with impassioned chants throughout the
march and fiery speeches at the rally.

Around 250 trade union activists and local residents attended the
Peterborough Trade Union Council organised ‘March and Rally for Unity’
on Saturday 11th December, organised in response to the English Defence
League march in Peterborough.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in
Manchester, around 70 people gathered in the Friends’ Meeting House to debate
how best to fight the onslaught of cuts this Tory government is about to
unleash.

As the scale of the cuts start to sink in, we look at the background to this crisis and ask – why has this happened?

Since the days of the Thatcher government, public sector workers have
had to live with the repeatedly stated ‘fact’ that the private sector is
supposed to be better, more efficient and cheaper at providing services
than the public one. This was the stated logic behind decades of
privatisation and outsourcing.

Saturday 23rd October saw the largest demonstration in Cambridge for
many years with over 500 trade unionists, students and community
activists marching through the city centre in opposition to the cuts
announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review. The march, organised by
SERTUC and Cambs and District Trades Council, drew in trade unionists
from across the region, with workers from other trades councils in
the region, Cambridge Labour Party members, pensioners’ groups and
students.

Tens of thousands demonstrated throughout the country as the government
finally presented its ruthless spending review. After many months of
guesswork, now we know the facts – and they are every bit as bad as many
expected. This coalition of millionaires is set on forcing working
people to pay the bill for the bailouts to the bankers and their rotten
system.

On Wednesday evening, October 20^th, around 200
trade unionists, students and community activists gathered on the steps of the
Council House in Coventry in protest at the national and local cuts. Tory
Chancellor Osborne’s announcement of the cuts package was a few hours old, but
the previous day Coventry City Council had announced that it would cut £146
million over the next four years from a present budget of £809m. This would
have represented a cut of 18% but with the knock on effects of higher benefits
and lower council receipts the cuts will be far higher.