I don't know if you saw Channel 4 News last night. Jon Snow forgot he was a journalist and played instead at being a tired parent knocking heads together. His two naughty children were Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), and Barnet's own Brian Coleman, chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.
I did watch it, and I distinctly heard Brian Coleman saying he was ready for talks at any time. Matt Wrack offered to meet him after the show. Brian negotiated him down to 9am this morning. I suppose he had a dinner date to attend.
But at 9am this morning, while the FBU negotiating team, true to its word, turned up to negotiate, Coleman and the London Fire Brigade commissioner Ron Dobson did not.
Perhaps Coleman couldn't be arsed to get out of bed. Does anyone have any idea of where he was this morning?
The FBU have called strikes because they are not prepared to work with the threat of the sack hanging over their heads. As things stand, LFB could start laying off all of London's 5,600 firefighters in mid-November. The clock is ticking and Coleman is nowhere to be seen. Lazy and slippery.
P.S. This snub seems particularly insulting given that Wrack, on behalf of the FBU, recently made Coleman the gift of a book - Firefighters and the Blitz.
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A concerned Londoner has suggested that other concerned Londoners send the following email this afternoon:
To: cllr.b.coleman@barnet.gov.uk
Brian,
...I just wonder as a resident of this city and after hearing you assure millions of viewers last night on Channel 4 news - where were you this morning?
I wonder what was so important and indeed more important that you had to deal with instead of the potential safety of Londoners during any fire strike.
I noted your beaming smiles as the piece faded out on tv last night, were those mocking smiles or nervous smiles because you had been caught out.
Cheers mate, look forward to your reply.
After posing as the hero of the hour last night, Coleman's reply now, apparently, is:
Elected Members are not allowed to attend negotiations such as these
I notice that residents of West Hendon and Grahame Park have hit back at Coleman's calling them slumdwellers.
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/8478155.Slum_slur_rejected_by_estate_s_residents/
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