UK civil servants protest 100,000 planned job cuts

Up to 200,000 civil servants staged a 24-hour work stoppage yesterday - the biggest UK public sector strike in a decade - to protest at government plans to axe thousands of jobs.

Tax and customs offices, jobcentres and the British Museum were among organisations closed or offering a reduced service.

"The people on strike today are not faceless bureaucrats. They are the people who provide the services which you and me take for granted," said Alex Flynn, spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has proposed cutting 100,000 civil service jobs over the next two years.

Britain's biggest civil service union, the PCS wants assurances of no forced redundancies or relocations, and hopes the strike will bring the government to the negotiating table.

However, a Cabinet Office statement said it was taking essential efficiency measures to increase public sector investment.

"Our decisions mean more police, more teachers, more doctors and more nurses," the statement read. "We will not be diverted from this essential investment," it added.