Post date: Oct 20, 2012 3:2:1 PM
Thousands of protesters against the government's austerity measures march through the streets of London demanding change, as Union leaders say the country's economic policies have failed.
LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (OCTOBER 20, 2012) (REUTERS) - Thousands of anti-austerity protesters marched in London on Saturday (October 20) protesting against public spending cuts enacted by a government fighting off accusations that it is run by an upper-class elite that ignores the plight of recession-hit voters.
Nurses, cleaners, librarians and ambulance drivers were among tens of thousands who marched past the Houses of Parliament to a rally in Hyde Park in one of the biggest anti-austerity protests this year. Marches will also take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, andGlasgow, Scotland.Under grey autumnal skies, police closed roads around parliament in Westminster before the start of the march at 1100 GMT.
Trade union leaders sought to pile more pressure on Cameron at the event, saying the government's economic plan has failed, prolonging Britain's second recession since the financial crisis.
"The government's policies are failing. They told us we would have economic growth and a recovery moving by now. We have not got that. They told us the borrowing would be coming down to pay off the deficit, they have not achieved that," Brendan Barber, head of the Trades Union Congress, an umbrella group which represents 54 unions, told Reuters.
"So, they have got to acknowledge their policies simply are not working and of course the price is being paid by ordinary people."
Dave Prentis, head of the Unison Union, said ordinary citizens were suffering from pay cuts.
"The top one percent in our country, in terms of wealth, had a 30 percent pay increase last year. Our members had their pay cut when they are earning 12,000 GBP per year. It has got to stop. There is more unfairness in our society now than there were in Victorian times," he said, adding: "We need growth, we need jobs, we need to get people back to work, we need jobs for our young people. And it can be done, there is an alternative."
Opponents of the unions say the government should stick to its plan to eliminate a budget deficit that stood at 8 percent of gross domestic product last year, the biggest of any major European country.
The march comes at a time when Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative-led coalition is reeling from the resignation on Friday (October 19) of a senior minister accused of calling police "plebs", a class-laden insult for working people.
The party faced a barrage of negative headlines on Saturday over the departure ofAndrew Mitchell, the "Chief Whip" or party enforcer, four weeks after he swore at police guarding the gates to Cameron's Downing Street office.
A second row involving George Osborne, the finance minister - who sat in a first class train carriage with a standard class ticket before paying for an upgrade - played into the hands of critics who say the Conservatives are privileged and out-of-touch.
"Who Do They Think They Are?" asked the Daily Mail newspaper in a front page headline, while the Financial Times said the bad news over Mitchell and Osborne capped a "dismal week for the Tories", the centre-right party that is trailing in the polls.
Clare Keogh, a 21-year-old graduate said young people faced a daunting future after graduation.
"It is a nightmare for young people. I mean, what do we have ahead of us? Myself and my friends who have just graduated, it is so difficult."
Paul Bishop, a teacher taking part in the rally said: "We need to make this government start to think about the cuts. We are just being slaughtered at the moment with cuts and it is ridiculous."
The coalition government has responded to calls from unions and the oppositionLabour Party to do more to boost growth by relaxing planning laws and boosting lending to businesses.
But its latest attempt to ease the pressure on squeezed households backfired this week when Cameron said the government would legislate to force energy companies to give customers their lowest tariff. The surprise announcement appeared to take his own ministers by surprise and sowed confusion over what he meant and whether it would actually happen.