Union attacks 'deafening silence' from Tories over financial crisis

Unite seeks to gather support for 'fat capitalist pig' protest against Conservatives

The country's biggest trade union is to stage a "fat capitalist pig" demo outside the Tory party conference in Birmingham on Wednesday while David Cameron makes his keynote speech.

Unite members wearing "pig masks" are to protest over what they claim is the "deafening silence" from the Tories over what action they would take to tackle the global economic crisis.

The row has been sparked by disclosures that a number of Tory donors have been involved in short-selling banks which have either had to be taken over or nationalised by the government.

Joint general secretary Derek Simpson said today: "This exposes the Tories for what they really are. They are funding their party and maybe even their election campaign on the misery of thousands of British families, who could lose their homes and jobs because of the spivs and speculators.

"Thousands of staff at banks like HBOS and LloydsTSB fear for their jobs but the Tories seem more interested in taking money from the culprits of the credit crunch than helping the victims.

"There has been a deafening silence from the Tories when almost everybody else in the country - including Labour - are calling for City excesses to be reined in. Now the country knows why. They are the same old Tories. They cannot be allowed to win the next election."

The union was today contacting finance workers across the UK to gather support for the protest.

The GMB union demanded that the Financial Services Authority, the regulator, launch an inquiry into the Tory donors who are connected to the short selling of bank shares.

Paul Kenny, the GMB's general secretary, said: "GMB is aware that there is a major inquiry under way in the US to establish if rules were broken during the recent meltdown in the financial sector. GMB would like the FSA to establish what meetings these donors had with Tory politicians and what they discussed at the meetings.

"Did these meetings influence the recent Tory defence of short trading which brought down the Bank of Scotland?"