SATURDAY saw what I hope is the start of building a mass campaign across Britain with trade unions, People’s Assembly groups and community campaigning organisations to call out the Tories and the cost of living crisis they created. Here in Scotland very quickly we went from one protest in Glasgow to events being held in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.

In Glasgow, the event held jointly by the People’s Assembly Scotland and the STUC had just a week to organise and very dreich weather but the turnout was excellent. What was even better were the numbers of young people not just attending but on the platform speaking.

I was asked to speak and contribute a tune as the representative for the People’s Assembly Scotland. In the run up, when trying to compile my thoughts on what to say, I was reminded of the last crisis the Tories created that had launched the People’s Assembly Against Austerity movement. When I first heard Cameron, Clegg and Osborne tell us continually that “we are all in it together” I wrote a song for my band called “Don’t piss down my back (and tell me it’s raining)” which became the title of our second album.

I have that same feeling now. Of course Johnson will not use the word austerity — the Tory mantra is “levelling up.” When you look at his levelling up we see the poorest in the country losing £20 per week from universal credit, hundreds of pounds are added to our energy and fuel bills, food and transport costs are steadily increasing, inflation is going through the roof — and the final straw, an increase in National Insurance. All while the corporations post record-breaking profits.

We also have the Bank of England telling workers that they need to show restraint on wage increases and the government telling us it wouldn’t be fair to ask the global energy and oil companies to pay a wee bit more tax.

This is not levelling up, this is a race to bottom for the working class. This is levelling down for the working class and levelling up for the financiers in the City of London and global corporations. This is them well and truly pissing down our backs and telling us it’s raining.

STUC general secretary Roz Foyer summed up the position of the Bank of England statement perfectly: “How dare the bankers tell us that we have to exercise restraint, if they had shown restraint instead of excessive greed these past decades [they wouldn’t have] run our country into the ground, where good hard-working families now have to choose between feeding their children or heating their homes. Now is not the time for restraint, now is the time for trade unionists and workers to stand up and fight back.”

Speaker after speaker highlighted issues from their industries or sectors, with community-based organisations, young workers, trade unionists, politicians and the pensioners’ forum all adding their messages. With calls for a freeze on energy bills and a windfall tax on oil and gas suppliers and an end to VAT on utilities. To limit supermarket profits by price controls on essential goods and taxing excess profits, renationalise energy and transport companies, restore the universal credit uplift and extend it to all benefits and no tax rise through the increase in National Insurance. It’s time to tax the rich was the call.

With another two dates set for other protests on March 5 and April 2 we need to organise and mobilise even more people to join us. The call throughout the day was for the creation of a broad-based mass movement against this Tory government and the cost of living crisis they have created. We have to build on this very good starting point. If we fail to act now and create a mass movement that cannot be ignored, we deserve to be pissed on.

Tam Kirby is chair of Fife People’s Assembly.