Brian Coleman's fear of Facebook

During the fire dispute in 2002-3 a rank-and-file firefighters and supporters website, 30K, played a pivotal role in events. While the top leadership of the Fire Brigades Union buckled - surprisingly quickly, actually - under media and government pressure, 30K did its best to keep organising at the grassroots. The current leadership of the FBU is in large part a product of the experiences of that time; they will be a much harder nut to crack than Andy Gilchrist was, and I think the unity of the firefighters is stronger now.

30K became UK Fire, "The UK's No.1 Firefighters' Forum", still going strong after almost a decade (and various attempts to censor it).

So, how is social media being used in the current dispute? Well, now we have Facebook and, as you might expect, there is a Facebook group set up for firefighters and their supporters. Or there was.

The group, "I support London's firefighters", keeps being taken down and the individual Facebookers running it suspended, as the LFB applies for it to be investigated. Its current status is disappeared. Individual firefighters are being disciplined for comments they are supposed to have made on Facebook.

In the traditional media, there are all manner of shenanigans going on in an attempt to smear the firefighters; there are rumours that LFB has released details of individual firefighters to the Daily Mail so that they can run "exposés" of individuals earning London weighting and living in far-flung places like Tenerife - this can't be right when Brian Coleman himself has to live in Finchley! - and Stevenage. Wherever the papers are getting their information from, it is certainly very detailed.

Two Jags and the posh git

John "Two Jags" Prescott; Brian "Many Taxis" Coleman: you'll only spot the difference when they open their mouths.

I'm speculating as to why might be a particularly good time for David Cameron to pull strings and see Brian Coleman gets the push. Of course, Coleman has his fingers in so many pies, it will be hard to extricate him from all of them. I'm sure he won't go quietly - there will be gravy on the floor before he leaves!

But now might be an opportune moment, before he can cock up a really big issue. I'm talking, of course, about something like... the dispute with the London firefighters.

The last time that the Government was in dispute with firefighters, Labour was able to deploy John "Two Jags but I've a Hull accent and still maintain I'm working class" Prescott against the FBU. Prescott was the Deputy Prime Minister, in charge of negotiations, and always happy to explain why the firefighters didn't deserve an average salary of £30,000. (I don't know what Prescott was on at the time, but he was doing pretty well for himself.)

For all his working class credentials, however, he was unable to impress the firefighters. The chatroom air was blue whenever anyone mentioned Prescott's name. In fact, he was almost as unpopular as the then general secretary of the union, Andy Gilchrist.

Jump to 2010. Who, basically, is in charge of the London Fire Brigade, and behind the scenes of the "negotiations" with the FBU? Brian Coleman. In many ways, he is the spitting image of Prescott, who clearly likes his dinners almost as much as Coleman. But there are some obvious differences (just a few!). Coleman does not have a trade union background; he is not now and never has been a member of the working class, as is evidenced, among other things, by his plummy accent.

He is personally arrogant in a way Prescott is not; and he clearly hates, just hates, the FBU. With Prescott you never got the sense that any of it was personal or even ideological; he just had to face down the union, or Labour's business-friendly image would be tarnished.

Prescott had several factors on his side in the dispute with the FBU; Coleman has practically none. Firefighters already despise him. Anything he says or does in a dispute with the FBU is only going to inflame (ahem) the situation. If Prescott got the firefighters' goat, how much worse are Coleman's pronouncements going to sound to firefighters' ears in an all-out battle?

If, like me, you witnessed the astonishing support the firefighters had during their, in fact, fairly short campaign in 2002-3, you would realise that a full-blown dispute with them is something the Tories will want to AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE! Braziers on the forecourts of London's firestations as winter approaches? With the Tories trying to push through enormous cuts, and impose a pay freeze (or, as it was known in the 1970s, "wage restraint") on public sector workers. That would have to be the Tory-Lib Dems' absolute worst nightmare.

So, I'm sorry Brian, I think your days really are numbered.