Fight the good fight

 
Union leaders have called for a mass campaign of civil disobedience against the cuts. Communities should take direct action to block roads and occupy services earmarked for closure in a show of resistance, union bosses said.

Dot Gibson, of the National Pensioners' Convention, which represents 1.5 million affiliated members, called on the public to "sit down in the road [and] take direct action" to fight the cuts. She predicted greater "radicalisation" across the country as the effects of the cuts started to be felt by ordinary people and said her organisation was already seeing a growing militancy in rural areas, where people were more reliant on disappearing services such as post offices.

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades' Union, also called on communities to take matters into their own hands. "When they want to close down a youth centre, when they want to close down a school or a hospital, if communities want to occupy them we are going to support them. That's the sort of action we need to take to challenge this Government."
There were also growing signs there will be a fresh round of public sector strikes this autumn. The TUC general council announced it would back a call to consider the practicalities of a general strike – not seen in the UK since 1926 – while members of England's two biggest teaching unions announced industrial action short of a strike later this month.

Bob Crow, leader of the RMT union, told delegates they had to band together to take on the Government. "If you spit on your own you can't do anything," he told a fringe meeting on co-ordinating action, "but if you all spit together you can drown the bastards"