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David's Mental Meaderings
5th November 2002

The thing about Meanderings is that you never know when they are going to arrive. Sometimes they show up less than a week apart - sometimes not for months.

November is a busy month around here. We have four birthdays in the extended family, including Mrs Holford, her mother and brother, and a little cousin born just before Aidan. Unfortunately, we will have to avoid using candles on any of the birthday cakes. Too risky.

Recently, the firemen in the UK decided that they wanted a 40% pay increase. Not over time - they want it in all and they want it now. Since they last negotiated their pay structure and increase schedule in 1976, they have gone along, happy as Larry, until all of a sudden they realised they weren't making as much as policepersons.

If you or I were to go into our employers and demand a 40% pay increase with our next pay check, we would be told to go find another job. If the firemen don't get their 40% overnight, they are walking off the job.

The first in a series of strikes was avoided through negotiation, or at least through a disingenuous Government convincing the firemen that they had a glimmer of hope in getting their demands. To further tighten their grip on the Government the Fire Service had scheduled the first strikes for Bonfire Night. Bonfire Night is the evening of November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, a celebration of the capture of Britain's first terrorist, the bloke found with the matches in the Gunpowder Plot to blow up King James I and Parliament in 1605. In terms of public consumption of fireworks, Bonfire Night is the British equivalent of the Fourth of July.

This Labour Government has the same problem as previous Labour governments - as soon as workers demand more money, Labour governments all of a sudden get very conservative. The Labour political philosophy works great until they are actually in government and have to actually pay the bills. It is difficult to think of Labour negotiating with labour and not see visions of 1978-79 and the Winter of Discontent.

The unfortunate thing is that the Fire Service has the Government in a grip of genitalic proportions. After all, if all the fire fighters walk off the job, who is going to fight fires? The only thing left is the army and the only equipment they know how to use are Green Goddesses. What, you ask, is a Green Goddess?

Officially it is the Bedford RLHZ Self-Propelled Pump. They were built between 1953 and 1956. Their purpose was to replace urban fire bridges which would be destroyed in the event of a nuclear attack from Russia. They have a top speed of 35 miles per hour, have no radio (therefore police have to escort them when they are on call), no special breathing apparatus, no cutting equipment, no burn kit, and one ladder.

The other key issue is quantity. The UK normally has 3,000 fire engines, of an average age of seven years. There are less than 1,000 47- to 49-year-old Green Goddesses to replace them.

The Government is offering special fire safety advice during the strike: try to be extra careful not to start any fires. I'm not exactly sure who, in their home or business, thinks, "I was going to be careless with these matches and flammable liquids, because the fire service can always put out our burning building, but today I'll play it safe instead."

I have little doubt this Government will continue to get it all wrong. They haven't gotten anything right yet. They are so concerned with form they have nothing left for substance.

This is the Government, after all, that deconstructed the British Constitution with nothing to put in its place. Is it not bizarre that a Labour government forced the hereditary peers out of the House of Lords using the obstruction to the Government's plan to means test disability allowance? They couldn't give cripples less money because Conservative peers wouldn't let them?

The closest American analogy would be if the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and they were able to re-write the election rules so that whatever happened there had to be a Democrat majority in the Senate, using as a catalyst a Democrat bill to reduce Social Security Disability payments.

This is the Government that put the national rail infrastructure into receivership with no plan for what to put in its place. It dumped $1.25 billion into the Millennium Dome so the Prime Minster could hold hands with the Queen and sing Auld Lang Syne on the night that wasn't really even the beginning the of the new Millennium. In the effort to cut NHS waiting lists it has increased them.

It spent $100,000 for a chartered airplane to deport a family of Afghan asylum seekers to Germany - after it sent the police to smash into a mosque to get them. A court ruled that the Government deported them illegally, so instead of bringing them back to Britain (a regularly scheduled flight for all four from Frankfurt to Birmingham would set the Government back about $1500) the Government said it would pay for lawyers and medical experts to fly to Germany to assist the family.

As you can probably tell, I could go on and on and on. And that's just the Government's incompetence. I haven't even touched on the scandals and sleaze from a Government that came into office promising to be "whiter than white." Maybe another time.

Back to our crisis at hand. Did I forget to mention that the negotiations are being handled by the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott? This is the bloke who went out stumping for votes at the last election and punched a man in the face. Take one incompetent Government and add one irrational Fire Service… well, you do the math.

This reminds me of the Government's handling of the foot-and-mouth crisis. We are probably looking at more burning carcasses, but they won't be sheep.

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