Image caption The coalition came together to fight against the government's austerity programme

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition's (TUSC) anti-cuts campaign is "steadily growing", its chairman has said, ahead of the local elections.

On Thursday the TUSC is fighting 120 seats across England, as voters in 34 councils go the polls.

It is also fighting the mayoral election in Doncaster on the same day.

Dave Nellist, a former Labour MP in the 1980s, told the BBC the party was "putting down a marker" in the battle against cuts to council budgets.

The TUSC was formed ahead of the 2010 general election and brings together a coalition of trade unionists, community campaigners, anti-cuts groups and socialists to fight against the government's austerity programme.

Since then it has fielded candidates in all the local elections, growing the number of candidates it puts forward from 2% of seats in 2011 to 5% of seats this year.

'100% anti-cuts'

In 2012 two councillors, one in Preston and one in Walsall, became the first to be elected under the TUSC banner.

Mr Nellist, who was MP for South East Coventry from 1983 to 1992 and is now national chairman of the TUSC, said: "We switch on Newsnight every night and see three new MPs sitting there and it's not until tags come up, with their names and parties, that we can tell the difference between them.

"To an all too great overlapping extent the established parties see that the austerity brought about by the financial crash in 2008 is something ordinary people were responsible for and they should be the ones to bear the burden.

"We disagree. We are 100% anti-cuts."

The party is expecting to make progress in Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, where it is contesting 15% of the seats.

Mr Nellist added: "It would be optimistic if I talked about winning many seats because of difficulty in getting our message over when most coverage is concentrated on those who already have seats.

"However, we're putting down a marker for battles over austerity programmes in council areas, which are yet to come.

"Although we're three years in to the coalition government much of what they have done on cuts so far has been absorbed by voluntary redundancies, reserves and other things but the room to manoeuvre is fast disappearing.

"The work we're doing is to say to people you can fight against individual closures but if the budget remains the same then you're just pushing the cuts in to other areas.

"We're standing to get elected, but also to lay down a marker with communities, with parents, with anti-cuts groups to say there is another way to get a say on this and that's at the ballot box."