STUC March against the Cuts–Edinburgh 23rd October 2010

I had to march – I owe my life to the NHS on at least four occasions in the last eight months, and whatever anybody says, they will feel the impact of this ConLib lunacy. So I marched most of the way under an NHS banner.

Here’s what my dog Angus – who doesn’t usually look evil - would like to do to the Cameron/Clegg, Osborne/Alexander partnerships – chew them up and spit them out …

The organisers expected 10,000 and got 20,000 plus.

Well-behaved, good-natured, highly committed people, marching for what they believe in, fearful what is being directed against them by the rich and powerful. I was with them because it's also what I believe in, and because of my debt to the NHS.

But will it be enough?

The STUC is to be congratulated for a big turnout and a well-disciplined, impeccably stewarded march and demonstration.

But it won't be enough to halt the doctrinaire Tory assault on public services. We need to take a leaf from the French book.

And until the unions recognise their betrayal by the Labour Party and end their affiliation to it, it won't come right. Labour did this to us – Labour deliberately destroyed the chance of a rainbow coalition  to escape responsibility for the economic shambles they created.

The Tories have used it, with the help of the craven, power-hungry LibDems, to fulfil their dream of destruction of the Welfare State and subjection of ordinary people to the will of the rich, powerful and insatiably greedy people who form the core of their financial backers.

Only full Scottish independence - leaving the rump of the UK to its lost dreams of empire - and utter rejection of the nuclear obscenity will deliver that – and only the SNP can deliver it.

Vote SNP in 2011 and let’s put this confused, brutal and unfeeling Disunited Kingdom behind us.

In doing so, we also free the English people to pursue their own fight for economic and social justice, and to re-discover England as a great, independent and proud nation once again.