Bob Crow seek mass strikes over cuts

Rail union chief Bob Crow today called for mass strikes and trouble on the streets as David Cameron prepared for a historic meeting with union leaders.

The RMT general secretary urged a repeat of the anti-poll tax campaign in response to government cuts.

He said: "Industrial action, civil disobedience and millions on the streets are all elements that we need to weld into the anti-cuts campaign and the Government should be left in no doubt as to the angry and determined mood brewing up across the country."

Mr Cameron has invited union leaders to Downing Street today — believed to be the first official meeting between a Tory prime minister and union leaders since the end of the miners' strike in 1985 when TUC general secretary Norman Willis met Margaret Thatcher.

Len McCluskey, new leader of the Unite union, praised the "magnificent" student protest and said it should find a "wider echo". "Their mass protests against the tuition fees increase have refreshed the political parts a hundred debates, conferences and resolutions could not reach," Mr McCluskey wrote in the Guardian.

"The response of trade unions will now be critical. While it is easy to dismiss general strike now' rhetoric from the usual quarters, we have to be preparing for battle."

Mr McCluskey said union leaders will meet next month to discuss a "broad strike movement" to stop the "explicitly ideological" programme of cuts. The TUC is planning a huge demonstration in London in March.