THE activities of a disproportionately small number of people on the TUC Demonstration of March 26, and the disproportionately large amount of media attention given to them, should not divert attention from the significance and message of the demonstration.

Somewhere between 500,000 and a million people turned out to voice their opposition to the ConDem government policy of wholesale attacks on public services and to support an alternative.

An opinion poll conducted in advance of the demonstration showed 52 per cent support for its aims.

Policies combining strengthening public services and introducing fair taxation make far more sense than the current ones that are designed solely to benefit the bankers and financiers that landed us in this economic mess in the first place.

Why should ordinary working people have to pay for the bankers’ short sightedness and greed?

Incidentally, the activities of the minority of anarchists in London are not entirely without precedent, as the following quotation illustrates: “We got drunk, trashed the Ritz and then went down Piccadilly to loot a few items from Fortnum’s.” This is taken from London Mayor Boris Johnson’s Autobiography in reference to the Bullingdon Club in 1986!

Roger Bannister UNISON National Executive Council Member for the North West (personal capacity)