Tony Woodley - Anti Cuts Tour

Joint GS Tony Woodley has began a nationwide tour to rally workers, students and pensioners against the Government's "destruction" of jobs and services.

Tony Woodley said the Comprehensive Spending Review constituted the most serious attack on working men and women and those least able to cope of his lifetime.

He warned that unemployment will soar to 4.5 million next year and said that the cuts will lead to £145 billion being taken out of the economy.

He told hundreds of people in Birmingham: "The coalition tore into our public services, hacking into the health, education and council services that hold this country together.

"The sight of George Osborne being congratulated by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, cheered on by Tories and Lib Dem MPs, will have revolted anyone who has a care for the sick and vulnerable in this country, and will terrify people who live beyond the Westminster village.

"As the true extent of these cuts - not the £81 billion Osborne is cowardly hiding behind but actually a colossal £145 billion - is revealed, anger will build.

"It won't be the leafy stockbroker belt that feels this pain, it will be my members trying to raise their families in the communities of the country that this Government has just set about destroying. The coalition has no mandate for the assassination of our services, and for those that voted Lib Dem, this is nothing short of a betrayal."

Mr Woodley said hopes that private firms would create jobs to counter the cuts in public sector employment were a "figment of the Government's imagination", adding that many small and medium sized firms could not persuade banks to lend them any money to expand their business.

"We have to build a coalition of unions, students, pensioners, voluntary groups and others. When the penny drops and people realise that the schools, hospitals and social services they built and paid for through hard graft and taxes are being destroyed by a political elite, rage will boil."

Mr Woodley will visit cities across the country in the next three weeks on his "anti-cuts" tour, ending in Scotland next month.