There is an alternative to the brutal cuts agenda, and thousands of people from all walks of life will demonstrate that in London
? Why we're marching
Will the march make any difference to anything? Cynics of the right sneer at the absurdity. Gleefully they seize on the silly comparisons of a few self-deluders: no, this is not Tahrir Square and no, Cameron is not Hosni Mubarak. Such exaggeration is as embarrassing as 1968 anti-Vietnam protesters in Grosvenor Square comparing themselves with the tragic Czech uprising.
But there are moments when protests catch the public mood. Will this be such a moment? It feels like the beginning, a marker put down for a turn in public attitudes. It will be huge, with 800 coaches and nine special trains arriving in London from all round the country.
How big? No one will ever know. Organisers underplay expectations, suggesting 100,000, knowing it will be vastly more, and well beyond counting as it snails its way for hour after hour from the embankment to Hyde Park. The "1 million" for Iraq was plucked out of the air, but the rule of thumb is three people per square metre.
Will there be violence? Almost certainly. Breakaways by certain anarchist fringes will make better pictures than a long march. The witty and smart UK Uncut will peacefully occupy Oxford Street shops targeting the great tax avoiders. How well the police keep their promise to prevent the violence while assisting the peaceful majority matters for their fragile reputation. Intentionally or not, kettling is a deterrence to some would-be protesters.
The government's best ammunition is the sardonic sneer. Who cares? These people are self-interested trade unionists worrying about their gold-plated pensions or middle-class poseurs, signifying nothing. But it may not look that way. This gathering may look like mainstream Britain, with hosts of nurses, midwives, firefighters, doctors, speech therapists, teachers and refuse collectors, the middle-aged and the squeezed middle alongside the students.
Some Liverpool businesses are providing transport, alarmed at losing contracts, while the cuts empty their customers' pockets. Thousands of ordinary people will be there.
Is all that really just self-interest, or is it common cause? People who use libraries, museums and swimming pools will be there, along with a coachload of parents from Hampshire whose Save Our Sure Starts will form a "buggy block" detachment. The array of cuts listed in the Guardian gives a flavour of the scale of social loss caused by saving trifling sums. The �2bn taken from North Sea oil profits to give Osborne a one-day headline for his paltry 1p petrol cut could have covered the cost of all these.
Cuts touch almost everyone, not just those who run services or use them, but battalions of volunteers, stunned to find years of work flicked away as worthless. This march will be full of people from all walks of life, if only because households will lose an average �750 this year.
Sandwiched between a budget that hits the poorest hard and the new financial year, this march may be Nick Clegg's real alarm-clock moment for Britain, when cuts that were threats become real. Grants will dry up, contracts will end, a third of charities will shut down, A&E and maternity units will start closing as waiting lists rise. Thousands more young people will join nearly a million already unemployed. That crosses all social classes. So try as they might, the government will have trouble portraying this protest as some sectional interest group, a trade union throwback, an empty gesture from yesteryear.
Do protests "work"? Tory truckers blockading fuel depots struck terror into the heart of the Labour government, though had they been greens the police would have dealt with them summarily. And the countryside march meant hunting continues virtually unabated.
But all commentators interpret history according to taste. Constitutional historian Vernon Bogdanor says the Jarrow march changed the conscience of affluent Britain. Peaceful protest works best: he says the suffragettes felt they were held back by their militants. Poll tax demonstrators, not the few rioters with scaffolding poles, galvanised opposition by striking a deep chord with the mainstream. Bogdanor reckons this march, too, may touch a raw nerve with ordinary voters, embracing library-users of the shires and public sector unionists. Fears for the NHS will be a potent political force.
But this is still early days. It will take time for people to see, feel and experience the cuts at first hand. The government will try to cement Ed Miliband beside Bob Crow and Mark Serwotka in the public mind, but the key union leaders know that strikes, let alone a general strike on pensions, are not the way to win. University teachers striking against students this week looked utterly self-defeating. So would Department for Work and Pensions staff striking against the unemployed. Shutting down public services while fighting to defend them is hard to explain, so plans are afoot in the big unions for sympathetic demonstrations, local and national, drawing attention to the loss of well-loved services.
March for the Alternative is the theme. What alternative? That is Labour's great challenge. At the budget Miliband and Ed Balls made more headway: the other way is growth. The latest Office for Budget Responsibility figures show how the cuts are already damaging growth and employment, making the deficit worse. Every 1% lost from growth is worth �15bn. "Too far, too fast" is catching on. What would you do, they heckle from the other side. They pretend Labour's plans were little different ? but reducing the deficit half as much is a huge �40bn difference. Local authority chiefs say they could handle half the cuts: it would be tough, but not this massacre.
Meanwhile, no one is counting the true long-term cost of the social deficit. The BBC's Stephanie Flanders has discovered that the OBR is barred from testing alternative scenarios, so the government hopes no one will find out. Other revelations this week suggest the government is planning to sell off RBS and Lloyds shares in its final year for a pre-election tax cut. Cameron has already warned there will be no re-growing the state. But is that what mainstream Britain would really choose?
This march is just the beginning; the opening salvo in a long campaign. Ignore the cynics: every pair of feet will make a difference.
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