There were delegates from the Trades Council Pensioners Group, Access to Advice, UK Uncut, at least three pubic service unions, Black Activists Against Cuts, Manchester Benefit Claimants Against Cuts, and students from both universities.

The meeting had a distinctly radical flavour, with talk of wanting a general strike and of bringing down the government. The students pledged to join striking workers on picket lines, and it seems there will be plenty of these around Manchester, of libraries, schools, the Arndale Centre, Albert Bridge House where Atos Origin operates and the Workfare Conference, which is being held at the central convention centre.

Speakers linked the strike with other campaigns against the spending cuts, and (rightly) declared these to be not an economic necessity but an ideological attack on the living standards of the working class by a party of the wealthy elite.

A shop steward from Fujitsu explained how the spending cuts are having an impact on the private sector. Many public services are contracted out to private companies. Cuts in pubic spending means they are losing contracts and profits, and are passing this on to their workforce in pay cuts and redundancies.

There was also a Spanish speaker from the Real Democracy Movement who explained the movement's origins in Spain and Greece, and how it is now translating to Manchester. They are holding public debates in Piccadilly Gardens, starting next Saturday (25th) at one o'clock. It was recognised by this speaker, and others, that while removing the Condems from power is the general aim, the Labour Party is no alternative. The Real Democracy Movement is about discussing what a real alternative could be.

Was this a meeting of "the usual suspects", the usual Left activists? Maybe it was. But they recognised the need to raise public awareness and get the public actively involved in campaigning against the spending cuts. The Access to Advice campaign has already mobilised public support. They got so many objections from local people to the council's in-house advice service being closed down that the council has changed ts decision and will now continue to fund part of the service. Even this partial victory would not have happened without community support.

I once read, in a book about the anti-poll tax campaign, that in a parliamentary system the government relies heavily on the acquiescence of most of the population to stay in power. Active dissent from even ten per cent of the population is enough to destabilise it. If this is so, then it isn't impossible to achieve enough active resistance to break up the Condem government. Let's make it happen.