Leicestershire Against the Cuts launched

Almost 100 people turned up to the launch meeting of Leicestershire Against the Cuts at the end of September.

Steve Score, Leicester Socialist Party

The feeling at the meeting was that the Con-Dem government’s cuts could be defeated, but there is a need to “agitate, educate and organise” to see this happen

Nina Franklin, National Union of Teachers vice-president, said she personally felt that the banks should have been fully nationalised to prevent them making massive profits and paying bankers obscene bonuses after taking billions of pounds of public money.

Jean Thorpe, a Unison national executive member speaking in a personal capacity, gave a detailed account of how the cuts were already affecting Unison members in her local authority area of Nottinghamshire.

She said many low paid workers, predominantly women, were currently facing the prospect of losing their jobs.

Janice Godrich, president of the PCS civil service union, cited tax avoidance and evasion, including by Tory funder Lord Ashcroft.

Liz Carney, a local community activist, told the meeting about a campaign against the building of a private finance initiative health centre on a green field site next to the University of Leicester.

The campaign will now organise a demonstration against the cuts in Leicester on 30 October. Email [email protected] for more details. Tony Church, Leicestershire Against the Cuts convenor