20,000 Scots take to streets of Edinburgh to protest against spending cuts

THIS is how you defend Scotland.

20,000 Scots take to streets of Edinburgh to protest against spending cuts Oct 24 2010
Mark Aitken, Sunday Mail

THOUSANDS of Scots marched in protest at Government spending cuts yesterday as Treasury axeman Danny Alexander battled to justify them.

More than 20,000 joined a rally in Edinburgh to oppose the spending review announced by the Con Dem coalition on Wednesday.

Union leaders warned of strike action over the slashing of public services, which will see Scotland lose around £3billion over the next four years.

Up to 50,000 of the 500,000 public service jobs under threat will be lost in Scotland and the same number could go in the private sector.

The Scottish Trades Union Congress organised the rally and general secretary Grahame Smith said: "If members decide that the best way is to take industrial action then they will do that. I'm not saying that as a threat, but as a fact.

"We want to work constructively with employers but if they are not willing to do that then members will take action to protect their rights.

"There is no coordinated campaign of action at the moment. We hope it can be avoided but it's a real possibility."

But Alexander claimed the cuts were fair, despite moderate earners being penalised by changes in child benefit. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury said: "The decision we've made on child benefit was right and fair. It's part of ensuring that people with broader shoulders bear the greater share."

STUC president Joy Dunn told the Edinburgh protest: "A line has been drawn in the sand.

"Now is the time for organised co-ordinated industrial action. The fight starts here.

"This cabinet of millionaires know the price of everything but the value of nothing."

Marcher Peter Allison, 40, a staff nurse from Dundee, said: "This protest sends the message that people are prepared to work together against the cuts.

"People are trying to push the consensus that these cuts have to be made but I think the money can be found elsewhere.

"They say they will ring fence the health service but once the cuts have been made elsewhere, I think we will be next."

Among the marchers in Edinburgh were Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray and SNP Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

The SNP government last night said the public spending cuts made borrowing powers for Scotland "absolutely essential".

Finance Secretary John Swinney's spokesman said: "We are building economic recovery in Scotland.

"But the UK government's damaging decision to slash our capital budget by a quarter next year threatens to take a wrecking ball to recovery."

Tories back on road to economic disaster
Have the Tories learned nothing from the 1980s and early 90s? Do they not realise that longer dole queues mean higher welfare bills, let alone that the social cost that communities can take years to recover from?

Do they want to add to their tragic litany of economic vandalism over past decades - Linwood, Bathgate, Ravenscraig? Their own figures show that for every extra 100,000 people claiming jobseeker's allowance, the Government needs to spend £400million on benefits.

George Osborne's Office for Budget Responsibility has even estimated that the Government's plans will cost an extra £700million in job seeker's allowance claims.

The Tories and the Lib Dems want you to think there is no other alternative to their plans to cut so deep.

But there is an alternative.

We should deal with the deficit in a fair way. It can't be fair, as the Tory government is doing, to take more money from children - in child benefit and tax credits - than from the banks.

We need an approach based on jobs and growth otherwise it will be impossible to get the deficit down.

Tragically in Scotland we have seen this Tory prescription before. And we know the results.