A woman civil servant handing out leaflets typified the mood. “I’ve worked for the tax office for 32 years and never thought I’d be militant or going on strike. But what this government is doing is making me angry”, she said.

The rally organisers said that there were up to 1000 demonstrating against the pensions changes.

Patrick Smyth, Chair of Portsmouth Vectis Revenue and Customs PCS Branch said that 85% of his office membership had stayed away from work – the biggest support for action in years. He said, “This is a stealth tax on the Civil Service and to pay towards the £850 billion they have given to the bankers.”

Amanda Martin, an NUT National Executive member said that 70% of Portsmouth schools were affected by the strike. Teachers could not afford to increase pension contributions from £100 a month to £150 and 8% were already opting out of the pension scheme.

Apart from strikers from the four Unions that had balloted for action, PCS, NUT, ATL and the UCU, contingents from UNITE, RMT, Unison and Portsmouth TUC  joined the March and Rally. The mood was one of anger and determination shown by the participation of the ATL, striking for the first time in its 127 year history! They had all decided: ‘enough is enough!’

Speaker after speaker demanded fair pensions for all. Dave Fish, UCU said: Private pensions were liberalised by the Conservative Government in the 1980’s, when big corporations had pension contribution ‘holidays’ and spent pensioners’ money. “We’ll support the private sector when they fight for their pensions”, he said.

Over the last year, since the Tories and Liberal Democrats became the Government, Portsmouth has seen more demonstrations rallies and strikes than at any time since the Miners strike in 1984/85. Anger with this government is growing, – shoppers in the City Centre applauded the March, strike pickets won support: people are getting off their knees and fighting back!