TRADE unionists threw down the gauntlet for “the most important general election since 1945” yesterday — and warned that austerity was “an attack on democracy itself.”

As delegates to the TUC in Liverpool debated the cost of living crisis plunging millions of Britons into poverty, PCS delegate Martin Cavanagh called for “mass co-ordinated action wherever and whenever possible.

“Gone are the days when we could just hope for a Labour government. Gone are the days of waiting for the cavalry over the hill.

“We are the cavalry.”

And RMT called for the TUC to write to all MPs to seek their views on austerity and to hold protests in marginal seats where they did not.

The union’s president Peter Pinkney said: “We should be targeting Labour MPs in marginals. We should ensure they are doing what they are elected to do.

“The TUC founded the party of labour. We should make them listen to us — make them give hope to children, the elderly, the poor.”

Delegates slammed new Con-Dem gagging laws that could see organised workers prosecuted for making their views plain.

“There are no restrictions on corporate lobbying but plenty on trade unions,” UCU delegate Martin Levy said.

“Are we just going to accept that?”

He praised the way the People’s Assembly had led to an upsurge in community resistance to Con-Dem attacks on our public services.

Usdaw’s John Hannett said united action against “a systematic rolling back of many of the rights we fought for over many years” was the only way to turn the country around.

“Work should be a route out of poverty,” he said — but noted that working parents were skipping meals to keep up mortgage payments.

And he denounced Tory efforts to turn the working class against itself by demonising the unemployed and disabled.

“Any one of us could be unemployed or disabled. It’s not us or them,” he said.

Mr Hannett called for a Labour victory in 2015. “The difference between the Conservatives and Labour is a difference of values. We have an opportunity in May and we have to take it.”