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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