Fed up with the government? There’s something you can do about it – today

Election Now: We can’t be a country where city bankers are allowed to help themselves to bigger bonuses while nurses and care staff are forced to use foodbanks, writes Frances O’Grady

We must never forgive – or forget – what the Conservatives have put us through over the last few months (PA)

Today, workers from across Britain will come together in Westminster to lobby their MPs and to call for a general election.

This is not something unions and our members do lightly.

But Rishi Sunak does not have a mandate to leave working families struggling to make ends meet this winter. He does not have a mandate to launch another round of crippling spending cuts that will hit schools, the NHS, and all our public services.

He does not have a mandate from the country. He does not even have a mandate from his own party.

Sign The Independent’s petition here

We must never forgive – or forget – what the Conservatives have put us through over the last few months.

They gambled with people’s livelihoods, homes and pensions. And for what? To make the richest in this society even richer and to give tax bungs to the likes of Amazon.

The decisions they took can’t just be glossed over as “mistakes” – the damage caused by the mini-Budget will be with us for years. Changing the person at the top of the Tory party is not good enough. The rot goes much deeper.

Just look at what 12 years of the Conservatives have done to this country:

• Public services have been run into the ground
• A wrecking ball has been taken to our social security system
• High streets have been boarded up and town centres have been left to decline
• Local services have been cut to ribbons – hitting the most deprived parts of Britain hardest
• Insecure work has spiralled out of control – with millions trapped on zero-hours contracts and in other types of exploitative work
• Pay packets are still worth £100 a month less than they were in 2008 – as UK workers suffer the longest wage-squeeze since Napoleonic times

The charge sheet goes on and on.

New TUC analysis published today shows that one in five key workers have kids growing up in poverty. Let that sink in for a minute. That’s around a million children whose parents are nurses, teaching assistants, social care workers and other frontline staff, going hungry.

The very same people that Sunak and other ministers clapped for from their doorsteps – and promised to take care of – are facing a daily struggle to heat their homes and provide for their families.

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This can’t continue. We can’t be a country where city bankers are allowed to help themselves to bigger bonuses while nurses and care staff are forced to use foodbanks.

We need a government that puts the working families of this country – not its own party – first. A government that rewards work – not wealth. That’s the case I’ll be making in Westminster tonight as the TUC holds a mass rally in Central Hall.

Make sure you come and join us this evening, and add your name to The Independent’s petition for an immediate general election. Voters must get their say now over the future of this country.

Frances O’Grady is the general secretary of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC)