On March 26th, Notts residents will join hundreds of thousands of people from across the country to protest against the government’s austerity drive.

Our friends at Indymedia London will be covering the protests. On the day you can:

• Text sms news updates direct to the website on 07943 103 736
• Call in breaking news reports to 07929 469 640
• Visit a mobile friendly version of the website at: mob.london.indymedia.org

Other groups will also be reporting live on the day.

On the newswire: (Not) Wanted Jon Collins | M26 Posters, art, agit-prop, maps | UK Ungoverned: a call to action on March 26th | #NetworkX Call for TUC Demo + Class Struggle

Notts Travel Details: Notts TUC | False Economy

After a few faltering starts, the anti-cuts movement in Nottingham really got going in late-September last year, with a public meeting organised by Notts TUC serving as a catalyst for the launch of Nottinghamshire Save Our Services. Since then the city has seen a wave of protests including a march of 1,000+ in the city centre and a similar number at a march against Royal Mail privatisation in Beeston; an occupation of Nottingham University; actions against tax dodging corporations and bailed-out banks; disruption of the city council budget meeting; strike action at the county council; and attacks against government, corporate and party political targets.

Much of this activity has taken place with one eye to building for the national demonstration which is likely to be huge. Reports from local trade unions suggest that there are more coaches booked from the region than there were for the 1 million+ march against the war on February 15th 2003. The RMT Union have even booked an entire train which is making various East Midlands stops.

While the TUC has been actively collaborating with the Met to try and keep control of events, a wide array of non-TUC authorised activities are planned. Including (but not limited to) an education bloc feeder, a radical workers bloc, a South London feeder, an occupation of Oxford Street, a dissident feeder march, a mass bottling/egging of Ed Miliband and a 24 hour occupation of Hyde Park.

Nottingham residents may be particularly interested to discover that city council leader Jon Collins will also be attending the march. He revealed this to campaigners during a confrontation on the day his council set a budget slashing millions from vital public services. Since then he has been excitingly tweeting that he will be “joining” Unison Vice President Chris Tansley and even comedian Mark Steele on the march. Wanted posters have been produced to ensure Collins cannot evade identification, should anybody want to have a friendly chat with him about the council’s recent budget.