9.15am: Good morning and welcome to the Guardian's live coverage of the mass protest in London against the coalition government's public sector cuts.

Around 300,000 people are expected to join the March for the Alternative organised by the TUC, the biggest union-organised event for over 20 years and the largest in the country since the protest against the Iraq war in 2003. More than 800 coaches and 10 trains have been chartered to bring people to the capital from as far afield as Cornwall and Inverness.

Union members are expected to be joined by a broad coalition, from pensioners to doctors, families and first-time protesters, to football supporters and anarchists. My colleague Matthew Taylor has written a guide to all the organisations - both official and unofficial - who will be taking part.

The Metropolitan Police believe a small minority will try to hijack the anti-cuts march to stage violent attacks on property and the police. The TUC organisers of the event say they have organised a family-friendly demonstration with brass, jazz and Bollywood bands. But there are concerns that unofficial feeder marches, sit-down protests and a takeover of Trafalgar Square could turn from peaceful civil disobedience into stand-offs with the police.

The march assembles on the Embankment from 11am but it will still be leaving at 2pm and possibly even later. The TUC has drawn up a set of tips for those planning to join the march. The protest will culminate in a rally in Hyde Park. Guardian reporters Matthew Taylor and Paul Lewis will be out on the streets covering the protest as it happens.

If you're at the demo and want to send me any comments - or share any pictures, audio clips and videos - you can contact me either on david.batty@guardian.co.uk or on Twitter - @David_Batty

9.45am: A Guardian/ICM poll published today shows that the public are divided over the cuts, while two other polls last night put the balance more strongly against cuts.

The Guardian/ICM poll of 1,014 found that 35% believe the cuts go too far, 28% think they strike the right balance and 29% think they don't go far enough; 8% don't know.

A YouGov survey for Unison found that 56% believe the cuts are too harsh and a ComRes poll for ITV showed that two-thirds think the government should reconsider its planned spending cuts programme. Just one in five disagreed with that view.

Speaking ahead of the march, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said of the Unison survey: "I'm sure that many of our critics will try to write us off today as a minority, vested interest. This poll nails that lie.

"The thousands coming to London from across the country will be speaking for their communities when they call for a plan B that saves vital services, gets the jobless back to work and tackles the deficit through growth and fair tax."

10.02am: Barber will tell today's rally that there is an alternative to the "brutal" spending cuts. Ahead of the march, he accused the coalition government of threatening the NHS and destroying communities with the scale of the job cuts.

No part of our public realm is to be protected. And don't believe it when ministers say that the NHS is safe in their hands. With over 50,000 job cuts already in the pipeline - nurses, doctors, physios, midwives - in the name of so-called efficiency savings of £20 billion, the NHS as we know it, is already in intensive care. With David Cameron talking about selling it off to any willing provider out to make a profit, the NHS is facing the gravest threat in its history. Today let us say to him: we will not let you destroy what has taken generations to build. Let's be brutally clear about these brutal cuts. They're going to cost jobs on a huge scale - adding to the misery of the 2.5 million people already on the dole. They're going to hammer crucial services that bind our communities together, and they're going to hit the poorest and the most vulnerable hardest. Anyone who tells you different is a bare-faced liar. The government claims there is no alternative, but there is. Let's keep people in work and get our economy growing. Let's get tax revenues flowing and tackle the tax cheats, and let's have a Robin Hood Tax on the banks, so they pay us back for the mess they caused.

10.10am: Education secretary Michael Gove said today that he recognised the public concerns about the planned cuts. But he insisted that the government would not be deflected from its strategy.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

Of course people will feel a sense of disquiet, in some cases anger, at what they see happening, but the difficulty we have as the government inheriting a terrible economic mess, is that we have to take steps to bring the public finances back into balance.

10.13am: Labour politicians will join the march and party leader Ed Miliband will address the rally in Hyde Park. He will use the speech to set out Labour's alternative to the cuts and to accuse the coalition of fomenting the "politics of division" not seen since the "rotten" Thatcher era. Labour is calling the demonstration the "march of the mainstream".

But Gove told the Today programme there were "really big dangers" for Miliband in addressing the rally at the end of the march.

One is that people will say 'You are calling for a plan B from the government, you don't even have a plan A. More than that, you are associating yourself with a march which could, I'm afraid, move from being family event into being something darker.

10.29am: Here's some more comments from union leaders ahead of the march.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, will tell the demonstrators that every time the government votes through more cuts, they should hear the "angry voices" of public sector workers losing their jobs. He also warned it faced being wiped out in May's elections.

"Every day when they discuss squeezing NHS budgets I want them to remember the nurses here on the march, the paramedics - workers who keep our NHS going. Workers who see every day the effect of the cuts on patients who are having vital pain-relieving operations cut or delayed. "Workers who worry about patient care suffering, because job cuts mean there are not enough staff on the ward. NHS workers and the public fearful that the Health and Social Care Bill will mean the break-up of the NHS - the end of our much loved health service as we know it. A new dawn of privatisation for the Tories' friends in big business. "Every month when a library closes, a care home shuts its doors, or services for struggling young people are withdrawn, I want them to feel the fear, and anger of the people who have come here today from every part of the UK to vent their frustration and to stand up for a fairer future."

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said:

"Cameron and Clegg have launched a war on working people and today's demonstration is the start of the fightback. They expect us to suffer tax increases, pay cuts, unemployment and devastation of our pensions to pay for the crisis their friends in the City caused. They should expect the fight of their lives."

Len McCluskey, leader of Unite, said those taking part in the march were the "tip of the iceberg" because millions were opposed to the cuts.

"There is growing anger, which will build and build as the impact of the cuts take effect."

10.34am: My colleague Paul Lewis has just sent in his thoughts about the potential for trouble between protesters and the police.

I don't think anyone doubts that the main march will be in large part good natured and peaceful. Most protesters will spend several hours marching through London, seeing little more than the placards in front of them, and finish with sandwiches in Hyde Park. But that isn't to say there won't be pockets of trouble, and if past experiences are anything to go by they could flare into some quite nasty confrontations with police. Flashpoints could come when a handful of unofficial feeder marches, coming from across the capital, plan to join the main march. Will police let them? Many of the seasoned activists - those police like to call 'trouble-makers' - are likely to be on these fringe processions (watch out for delegations gathering right now in Kennington Park, Camden and Mallet Street) and the instinct of police, who at times exhibit an almost medieval vision of crowd psychology, is often to prevent groups mixing. That would spell trouble. The other likely hotspots will be Oxford Street at 2pm, where UKuncut plan to close down shops, and Trafalgar Square late in the afternoon, which there are plans to occupy. Both of these locations, and others we don't yet know about, are likely to be magnets for those intending to peel off from the slow procession through London in search of "direct action". Coping sensibly with all these splinters from the main march will be a policing nightmare for Scotland Yard. It all comes down to how much coercion police use. Stop people from walking where they want and sparks fly."

10.49am: My colleague Matthew Taylor is with the education feeder march, which set off from the University of London in Malet Street, Bloomsbury, around 20 minutes ago.

Groups of Scottish students who set off at 11pm last night are leading the chanting. Student organisers had said 'more than 10000' people would meet here but so far there are probably month more than 2000 - although more are arriving all the time. Students and lecturers are being joined by various activist groups and so far the mood is vocal but pretty good natured. We're at Russell Square now. There's a small police presence. The police and the organisers don't seem clear on the route but we're on our way down to join the main march.

11.58am: Paul Lewis is on the Golden Jubilee Bridge near the Embankment, overlooking the march.

He says the turnout is huge, stretching from the Houses of Parliament to St Paul's Cathedral. He says the atmosphere is good natured. The only scuffle he's seen was a protester heckling the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls.

12.09pm: Matthew Taylor, who has been following the education feeder march, has now joined the main protest.

In this audio report, he says the main march dwarfs the scale of the education protest:

"The student block has suddenly become much quieter than it was now they see the scale of the TUC march."

12.20pm: PA news agency has been speaking to some of the protesters:

Peter Keats, 54, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, who works for Jobcentre Plus, said:

"We're toasting the success as so many people have turned out. The press were saying 100,000 people but I think we have far exceeded that. I'm hoping for half a million. I'm hoping the government will start to listen with this many out. "Personally, I think it's wrong the way we are hitting the poor. I'm not so much worried about myself but the customers I deal with are vulnerable and I'm worried about them and I'm worried about the kids of this country."

Alan Dowling, 40, who works for the UK Border Agency in Sheffield, said:

"The other day the immigration minister was on TV saying we need to do more. How are we going to do more enforcement when we are cutting enforcement officers?"

12.30pm: Here's a map of the march route



View March for the Alternative Route in a larger map

12.35pm: The Public and Commercial Services Union has set up its own live blog of the march.

12.45pm: Journalist Mary Hamilton - aka newsmary - has been posting photos of the march on Twitpic.

12.58pm: This photo by Mary Hamilton pokes fun at undercover police officers - whose activities have recently been investigated by the Guardian.

1.00pm: While this photo from Mary shows crowds gathering at Embankment.

1.02pm: Matthew Taylor says thousands of people are still joining the march, with the total number estimated at around 400,000.

I am now on a footbridge overlooking the Embankment and people have been streaming underneath us for about an hour. People are queuing as far back as I a can see and tens of thousands more are still arriving from side streets. Organisers are suggesting there could be as many as 400,000 here today. That is impossible to verify at this stage. But it is clear that this is a very big demo.

1.04pm: Paul Lewis has sent through an update, describing the wide range of groups who have joined today's protest.

Standing here watching hundreds of thousands of people stream past, you get a real sense of the broad coalition against the government. I noted down every banner that past through over a couple of minutes. Somerset Teachers Association, Vulnerable Chinese Migrants Association, Society of Radiographers, Prison Officers Association, Don't Cut Out The Disabled, Southend On Sea Unison Branch, Ipswich Labour Party, Cut Trident, Nurses Uncut, Met Police Group PCS Union, Calderdale Division of the NUT, Chelsea Anti Cuts Alliance, Colchester NHS SOS, South Ribble Children, The Bohemian Storm is Rising, Parents Alliance of Community Schools, Isle of Wight Uncut.

1.10pm: EastLondonLines, a news website run by the journalism department of Goldsmiths, has posted this Twitpic, which shows the protesters marching past police lines near Parliament.

1.15pm: Tom Wills, a student journalist based in Brighton, has posted a set of photos from the march on Flickr, which give a sense of the mass turnout.

1.31pm: Activists from Ukuncut, the peaceful direct action group that has closed down more than 100 high street stores accused of tax avoidance, are moving into position on Oxford Street. They are planning 14 different occupations of high street stores accused of tax avoidance, Matthew Taylor writes.

A spokesman just said there were about 200 people moving towards their various targets with more expected to join in the next half an hour. Meanwhile the main march just gets bigger. People are still streaming across bridges to join from south London while others are making their way from the north.

Bernard Goyder, a veteran of last year's student protests, said he had been "blown away" by today's turnout.

This couldn't be any better. I have never seen such a wide diverse group of people together. It dwarves anything I have seen before. It is much much bigger than any of us were expecting.

1.39pm: Paul Lewis has just tweeted about police penning in protesters outside Downing Street.

Reports of "light kettle" at Downing Street and rolling shop occupations at Picadilly #march26 #26march Paul Lewis

paul__lewis

1.44pm: Richard Evans has been talking to PA News about his 166 miles trek from Cardiff to join the march.

Evans, a PCS union rep who was interviewed by the Guardian about his protest earlier this week, said the walk was worth it although his feet were "very sore".

I wanted to encourage people to get on a bus. I think the best way to do that is to go a step further. The whole point of this is the government looks again at the cuts. I'm hoping there is enough people here to make them realise when you're in the position you're in - in the coalition government - you need to think again. With this number of people, the government have to take notice.

2.00pm: Journalist Shiv Malik says that protesters are attacking Topshop on Oxford St.

Dozens of paint bombs and smoke bombs have been thrown at the front of Topshop in Oxford Street as hundreds of marchers gathered outside dressed in black. A window has been cracked. This was following calls by protest group UK uncut to occupy Oxford St stores. At least one arrest has already been made and 40 police officers are guarding the front of the store. Customers are still inside.

2.08pm: Sky says police are being attacked by protesters.

Metropolitan Police: Lightbulbs filled with ammonia thrown at officers by protesters. Sky News Newsdesk

SkyNewsBreak

2.11pm: New Internationalist journalist and anti-Tar Sands campaigner Jess Worth says BHS has been occupied.

2.14pm: Journalist Shiv Malik says that a legal observer has been hurt.

A male legal observer has a head injury outside of HSBC on Oxford Street about 50m from Topshop. He is being attended to by volunteer medics who are wiping the blood from his face. It looks like he has been struck over the head with something but it's unclear how it happened. Police officers are also in attendance.

2.27pm: Paul Lewis says that the demonstration is fragmenting into different sections, with the most violent protests taking place on Cambridge Circus.

You've got the main march which is absolutely huge, bigger than police were initially reporting. Then you've got two elements - one in Trafalgar Square which is occupied by protesters draping banners around Nelson's column and turning it into what they hope will be a kind of Tahrir Square. Then you have a second group of 500-700 anarchists in the West End of central London setting off smoke bombs, over turning litter bins, setting off bangers and stopping traffic. The worst I've seen is police outside HSBC covered in paint bombs. There are protesters throwing bricks and sticks, and as always there are a lot of journalists. I can see fireworks going off at Cambridge Circus and they are now attacking the HSBC bank.

2.34pm: Journalist Shiv Malik says that Oxford Street has effectively been pedestrianised.

Police vans have parked themselves in the middle of Oxford Circus and are blocking off traffic on both sides. Oxford Street has effectively become a pedestrianised zone. Half a dozen busses are trapped and parked up because they can't go anywhere. The drivers have just got out of their seats and are milling around. Forty riot officers are joining a further 40 who are currently outside Topshop.

2.36pm: Paint-splattered police officers look on as protesters attack Topshop on Oxford Street during the anti-cuts march in London.

2.45pm: There are reports of worse violence on Shaftesbury Avenue where this photo shows a police van has been attacked.

2.50pm: Topshop staff secure the paint-splattered doors of the Oxford Street store as police and protesters clash during the anti-cuts march in London.

2.53pm: Here is a link to our photo gallery of the demonstrations.

3.02pm: Ed Miliband has been speaking at the rally in London's Hyde Park, telling the crowd that the government was wrong to make such deep cuts in public services.

Miliband, who did not join the march through central London, said he was proud to stand with the protesters. He said the public sector cuts were too deep and were destroying communities across Britain.

Our struggle is to fight to preserve, protect and defend the best of the services we cherish because they represent the best of the country we love. We know what the government will say: that this is a march of the minority. They are so wrong. David Cameron: you wanted to create the big society – this is the big society. The big society united against what your government is doing to our country. We stand today not as the minority, but as the voice of the mainstream majority in this country.

The midwives from Kingston here to speak up for maternity services. The Sure Start workers from Hampshire here to speak up for children's centres. The small business owners from Liverpool here to speak up for jobs. The teachers and students here to speak up for the next generation. Every one of us knows that today the country faces difficult times. But we know too there is a different way. We hold to some simple truths: We need jobs to cut the deficit. Unemployment is never a price worth paying. The next generation should never have their hopes sacrificed on the altar of dogmatic deficit reduction. There is a need for difficult choices, and some cuts. But, this government is going too far and too fast and destroying the fabric of our communities.

3.08pm: Paul Lewis reports on violent clashes along Shaftesbury Avenue and the West End, but points out that the vast majority of protesters have remained peaceful.

From 1.30pm, a "black bloc" of between 500 and 1,000 anarchists began roaming around the West End, many with scarves across their faces, tipping bins into roads and smashing shop windows along route. With police constantly one step behind, they first attacked Top Shop on Oxford Street – a target for tax avoidance campaigners – before surging through the narrow streets of Soho. An Anne Summers shop window was smashed on Wardour Street, with "fuck the police" graffiti sprayed on the window. On Shaftesbury Avenue, scenes of some of the worst clashes, TSG riot officers who tried to defend a HSBC bank were attacked with bottles, sticks, bricks and traffic cones. Shoppers ducked into shops and were locked inside as missiles were hurled at windows. Police were completely overwhelmed – one team of surveillance officers that came to film the attacks on the bank were chased into a hasty retreat. Further along the street, anarchists who had been attacking a MacDonald's turned their attention to a silver Lexus car. The driver tried to swerve past bins in the road but the rear window was smashed with sticks before he could get away. There are two things to say about the violence. First, it is in parts really ugly – and potentially dangerous. If the temperature rises it could turn nasty. But the second point is that that this still only qualifies as skirmishes; we can roughly state that less than 0.25% of today's anti-cuts march is involved. The media (me included) are naturally attracted to the action. The "bloc" of trouble-seekers has now been consumed by the main TUC march, an enormous snake of people, which has been proceeding at snail's pace toward Hyde Park.

3.21pm: A protester tries to break a window in Oxford Street during the anti-cuts march.

3.23pm: Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, told the rally that the cuts were leaving old people without care, leaving libraries, swimming pools and parks to go to ruin and young people facing the prospect of a life on the dole.

McCluskey said every time the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, stepped out of doors it cost police £2m to protect him. According to PA he said:

"We cannot afford that any more - if you were to go on a national tour we'd be bankrupt."

The union leader also condemned the government's "assault" on the NHS, warning ministers that privatising the health service would spark the same protests as those against the poll tax when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

3.26pm: Hundreds of anti cuts and tax avoidance protesters closed down more than 13 shops on Oxford Street - with many more shutting their doors as more demonstrators peeled off the main march to join the direct action, Matthew Taylor writes.

By 3pm the demonstrations along Oxford street, that included music dance and comedy had largely passed off peacefully although Topshop was attacked with paint.

Murray Worthy from UKuncut said: "We don't really know how many shops have closed yet because a lot seem to have shut as a precaution. But all of the 13 we targeting have definitely shut... It has been a great success so far, people are really excited to be here and make their voice heard."

3.36pm: Here's a mid-afternoon round-up of the huge protest in London against the government's public sector spending cuts.

• Around 500,000 people have joined the TUC's rally against the government's public sector spending cuts in central London. The main group of the marchers demonstrated peacefully and walked along the pre-planned route from Embankment to Hyde Park.

• Anti cuts and tax avoidance protesters closed down more than 13 shops on Oxford Street and many more shut their doors.

• The protest has been largely without violent incident but a breakaway group of protesters attacked shops and banks in the Oxford Street area. A scuffle broke out between a handful of activists and police in New Bond Street.

3.44pm: Matthew Taylor describes the atmosphere on Oxford Street where tax avoidance campaigners UKuncut managed to close down 13 shops.

He says that while the atmosphere was tense for a while, with paint thrown at Top Shop and windows broken, the march has largely remained good-natured and peaceful.

3.48pm: Emily Finch, a student on the demonstration, says that the window of the Porsche showroom on Park Lane has been broken.

Swathes of people, approximately 400, dressed in black and red have dispersed from the main crowd who mainly comprised of peaceful protesters. They ran towards Berkeley Square from Hyde park and broke the window of the Porsche store, and a couple broke the side mirror of a porsche parked down a small side-street. Most of the crowd are now walking down Oxford Street while the police have shut most of the main stores. The police have surrounded the Vodafone store. The crowds have seemingly calmed down. A person is currently being arrested outside House of Frasers while the police have stemmed the movement of the riotous people down Oxford Street.

3.50pm: My colleague Patrick Kingsley is at the Ritz hotel on Piccadilly, which has been targeted by a small group of protesters.

A very small group of protestors have smashed three windows, thrown paintbombs at the entrance, and daubed anarchist symbols on the walls. Ten policemen are now standing outside the building, which is owned by the Barclay brothers, and the march passes by without further incident.

3.57pm: Ellie Cumbo, a Labour party activist on the demonstration, says that her experience of the march is much more peaceful than most media reports.

We've not seen any violence. The media is ridiculously hyped up; we haven't seen anything like what they're reporting. Right now we are walking up Regent Street behind the pink UCU banner "knowledge is power" and Suffragettes posters. The atmosphere is very much like a carnival – the crowd is loud and full of whistles. No one is pushing and shoving, in fact there is quite a lot of humour on the signs. It is not in any way intimidating or threatening. I think everybody here is united against these particular cuts that are hitting the most vulnerable. The people in the firing line are those who use youth services, domestic violence services and those for the elderly. I started off marching with the women's block, which has a really large presence here. A lot of people here are asking why aren't we making the cuts on those who can afford it rather than those that can't. That's the real point of consistency here.

4.05pm: My colleague Jonathan Paige has rung in from Oxford Circus where riot police moved in after a group of protesters occupied the BhS store.

He says the police kept a low profile due to the sheer number of protesters. But he says while the atmosphere was reasonably tense, he did not see any violent clashes.



4.17pm: Jamie Kelsey, a contributing editor of the New Internationalist magazine who is at the demonstration, says that the protest is providing a political education to many young people in attendance.

We're at Oxford Circus at the moment and it's a really excellent festival atmosphere. I just spoke to two teenagers aged 17 and 19 who have come from the comedy show in Soho Square, and they said that what they heard there made them think more than anything they have ever learnt at school. It's their first demonstration and when I asked why they came they said they realised that the demonstration is about more than just the UK. They can understand the connection between the shops and the banks that people are targetting and the global situation that is effecting everyone. They've heard Mark Thomas and a disabled comedian and Johann Hari speak. For these teenagers the protest is absolutely opening their minds to a much wider picture. It's very exciting. We've heard that Anne Summers windows have been smashed and Topshop has been covered in paint, but that doesn't seem to link with what young people are saying down here.

4.25pm: Journalist Bibi van der Zee has just posted on Twitter that there is a police kettle around dozens of activists who've piled inside Fortnum and Masons.

4.29pm: Ukuncut say that hundreds are now occupying their target, Fortnum and Masons, which they revealed half an hour ago on Twitter.

Hundreds of people Inside fortnum and Mason. Really good atmosphere. #ukuncut UK Uncut

UKuncut

4.38pm: My colleague Richard Rogers is outside Fortnum and Mason where a group of what he describes as anarchist protesters, wearing face masks, hoodies and balaclavas, have clashed with riot police.

He says protesters broke through a small line of police outside the department store and unfurled anarchist flags from the windows.

4.44pm: Jonathan Paige has just given me an update on situation outside Fortnum and Mason where he says the atmosphere is increasingly tense. He says around 300 protesters are inside the store which has now been completely surrounded by riot police.

Paul Lewis has posted photos on Twitpic of protesters entering the store through the first floor windows.

There are unconfirmed reports on Twitter that the store has been evacuated.

4.58pm: Jonathan Paige says riot police have now entered Fortnum and Mason in an attempt to remove around eight protesters from the awning on the front of the store.

5.06pm: Journalist Shiv Malik says there are around 100-200 protesters inside Fortnum and Mason, occupying around a quarter of the store. He says there have been a few violent clashes with police using batons and a few protesters throwing missiles.

5.27pm: Here's a late afternoon round-up of today's TUC protest against public sector spending cuts.

• Around 500,000 people joined the TUC anti-cuts march through central London. The majority of the protests have been peaceful, but there have been a few clashes between police and activists not associated with the main march.

• More than a dozen stores on Oxford Street were occupied by the protest group Ukuncut. There were a few skirmishes with police, and the street was closed.

• Department store Fortnum & Mason has been occupied by protesters from breakaway groups. Riot police have set up a kettle around the area.

5.35pm: The Met press office has said that today's march has been largely peaceful and well ordered, with a small number of violent disruptions and just nine arrests.

Today's TUC March for the Alternative has been peaceful and well-stewarded. However, there have been a number of separate incidents including the throwing of missiles in the Oxford Street area and criminal damage inShaftesbury Avenue. Police are on the scene and dealing with this. There have been a small number of arrests made for various public order offences, criminal damage and violent disorder. We can confirm police have not advised businesses in central London to close. There have been 9 arrests.

5.48pm: My colleague Richard Rogers says that Santander on Piccadilly has been attacked.

The glass doors to Santander on Piccadilly have just been smashed in. The police are beginning to charge. The security doors have just gone down on the bank. A kettle has been set up and a huge police presence has now set in.

Meanwhile Johnnie Paige has said that Lloyds TSB on Piccadilly is also being attacked.

A group of 25 protesters are trying to put the windows in with sticks and placards and throwing paint quite close to Santander that was attacked earlier.

5.53pm: Paul Lewis has been speaking to a variety of protesters on the demonstration who provide a counter point to the violence being described by the media.

Some people have been marching for almost five hours now, and I've joined some of them, buoyed by the sound of an RMT Union brass band and, a few paces behind, a Latin American samba orchestra, at the rear of the demonstration. Not everyone is happy. Tessa, 47, a social care worker, told me the protest wasn't a scratch on the demos of the 80s – she's disappointed there's no replacement to the 'Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out' chant. But she was clear on why she is here though: "I've got five leaving dos at my work this week. The cuts are all in the wrong place." Nearby Janice Brown, 53, a nurse from Dundee, said she had watched a steady stream walk past her and her husband all day. "I thought people cared more about football than what is happening with the NHS," she said. "Obviously not. I think I've seen 250,000 with my own eyes." She said front-line workers were going at her hospital. "Porters, cleaners, nursery staff." It was that theme – that the cuts are hurting the most vulnerable – that most people repeated as their reason for marching. Aaron Christie, 27, a community worker who helps vulnerable young people in Leeds, said he was on £18,000 pro rata, but had just had his hours cut to three days a week. All the sessional workers, who do front-line intervention with youth offenders, are "finding out if they still have a job next week", he said. "Why cut from the people with the lowest wage, while the people who caused the crisis find loopholes to avoid paying the price. I'm not a raving revolutionary but we need to ensure that people's welfare is more important than the free market." Most of the people here seem genuinely shocked – and proud – that they collectively managed such a remarkable turnout. Many said this was their first protest since the Iraq War demo. Most are oblivious to the skirmishes with police on the fringes of the march. But there are signs. I found three women in their 60s sat beside an upturned traffic light, outside the Ritz, which had been vandalised. "I think it's understandable – people are angry," said Mauren Turner, 69. Her friend Anna Brooke, 64, agreed – to a point. "It is a bit regretable because it has really been such a carnival atmosphere," she said.

6.02pm: The Guardian is seeking to establish a team of volunteer "cuts-watchers" who will collect information on how services are being hit in a particular area or sector. If you're interested in getting involved please email us at cutswatch@guardian.co.uk or see here for more information.

6.20pm: Our reporter Matthew Taylor says UKuncut feel misrepresented by media coverage, saying that its occupation was not violent.

I have just spoken to Ukuncut protesters inside Fortnum and Mason and contrary to an earlier report [5:06] there has been no violence and the atmosphere remains positive. They also say that reports that it was a "rogue group" that has occupied Fortnum and Mason are untrue - they are all Ukuncut activists.

6.30pm: This live blog is ending. Our live coverage of the march and the aftermath continues here.

Here is a summary of events so far.

• Around 500,000 people have joined the TUC anti-cuts march through central London in what looks to be the largest demonstration since the Iraq war. The majority of the protest has been peaceful. Police say there have been no more than 15 arrests.

• There has been sporadic violence around Piccadilly and the West End. Wndows were smashed at branches of Santander and Lloyds TSB by those who have broken away from the main demonstration.

• More than a dozen shops have been occupied on Oxford Street by protest group UKuncut. The group also occupied the upscale department store Fortnum & Mason, which was entered by several hundred protesters