A great day – with 2 million on strike and demonstrations and rallies, the largest for many years, taking place throughout the country.
Pickets at the Royal London Hospital
James Youd reports that the Cambridge demo was twice as large as June 30 and early reports suggest that this was the same everywhere. In London well over 40,000 were on the march.
COR threw itself into supporting the strike. We distributed tens of thousands of leaflets in advance of the day. And we had printed 5,000 placards and 10,000 broadsheets which we managed to get to all our groups.
In London more than 2,000 placards were distributed on the march and 4,000 broadsheets were handed out very quickly. COR’s message received a fantastic response and we were congratulated by Len McCluskey.
Our contingent was certainly the most lively and was joined by hundreds. We had more than 50 volunteers on the day.
In Scotland there were COR buses on both the Edinburgh and Glasgow marches. In addition there were COR contingents on both marches with COR organising a student feeder march of 1,000 in Glasgow to a demonstration of 20,000 and one of 300 in Edinburgh. 1,500 placards were handed out and 2,000 broadsheets. The Glasgow COR bus had 50 trades unionists on it.
In today’s Morning Star – which was handed out free courtesy of the trades unions – both the NUT and the GMB feature COR placards in their adverts.
So well done everyone – the whole movement took a giant leap forward today and we are at the heart of it.
By Andrew Burgin
Fred Laplat adds:
From the Guardian website
62% of schools have been closed and just over a quarter of civil servants have gone on strike. Courts, museums, libraries and jobcentres have been closed. Some hospital operations have been delayed.
• In English cities, tens of thousands of people attended rallies at which union leaders demanding the government think again on its policy. Around 20,000 turned out in Manchester, 15,000 in Liverpool, and around 5,000 in Birmingham. Thousands more flooded the streets in Bristol and Newcastle, while London saw the biggest turn-out at a march to Embankment. Up to 30,000 people attended.
• In Scotland, thousands attended a rally from Edinburgh Castle to the Scottish parliament. Thousands more turned out in Wales- with up to 5,000 in Swansea alone- and in Belfast.
In Liverpool today it was easy 15k, maybe more.
The people of Liverpool lined the streets and applauded us,
people lent out of office windows to cheer us on.
We paid Occupy Liverpool a visit,
beautiful people.
The police I managed to catch a few words with where very supportive.
Did you see the Daily Mail Poll when it got to 84% of readers support strike they pulled it, I have the screen dump.
The revolution is well under way, lets put the humanity back into our society, save our NHS, no to fees, fair pensions for all.
Well Done the Regime’s Arrogance is Diabolical and We Deserve Better
and Need Better
The Right to Strike for a Good Reason Deserves Protecting Not State
Repression out of a Totalitarian State
Money For Public Services including Welfare for the Poor and
Vulnerable Not War Mongering like the War in Afghanistan and
any Aggression against Iran
Better Strikes for a Good Reason than a Poor Quality Millonaires
Regime
We Need Daily Protests Not Drones in a Commercialmas Trance
The Threat of the UK Being Railroaded by Politicians into War with
Iran together with the Rest of the Nation Wrecking by the Con Dem
Regime is More than Enough Reason to Protest