Brian Coleman: the biggest, most useful idiot in Britain

I'm sure you don't believe everything you read in the papers, but some of the more lurid stories in the press today really take the biscuit. Articles such as this in the Sun: "Flaming cheek of fire strike boss", aimed against FBU general secretary Matt Wrack. This is not journalism, this is class warfare with the gloves off. And it's crap, of course.

The FBU have never demanded £10k in return for shift changes. And the strikes were not called over the substantive issue in their dispute with the London Fire Brigade - shift patterns - but against the sacking threat. From 26 November, all of London's 5,600 firemen and women could be sacked. We would have no fire service to speak of in London.

Where does the Sun get stories such as this? Who feeds them this crap? Who do you think?

The decision to take on the firefighters is a political one - the government wants to make an example of one of the strongest, best organised groups of workers, and batter them into submission. After that, what group of workers will have the courage to stand up to the government's cuts and job losses?

The man who is fronting this attack for the government is one of the most inept politicians ever - Brian Coleman. But he is also one of the thickest skinned and most arrogant men alive - he can take quite a lot of working class ire, he can take a lot of anyone's ire. So long as there is a London taxi for him to hop into and speed him to his next dinner engagement, and so long as there is an expense account to pay for it, Coleman will do anything to London's public services and anything to London's public servants that the government asks him to. I was going to call him a class warrior, but I think he is actually just the biggest, most useful idiot in Britain.

A leaflet outlining the main issues in the fire dispute, published by London region FBU, is available here. I urge Barnet residents to read it, and not to believe what they read in the Sun or the Evening Standard or Metro for that matter. As if you would.

Barnet firefighters: solid strike - public support needed

I went round to Hendon fire station this morning to say hello to the firefighters due to go out on strike. The shift had turned up for work at 9am; at 9.45am one engine "got a shout" and left the station. Their colleagues, including firefighters from other stations in Barnet, heeded the strike call (after all, 79% of them voted for it) and prepared for an eight-hour picket. At around 10.30 they were joined by their colleagues back from their shout.

AssetCo had been due to run an engine from Hendon. No one knew quite where they were; the engine did not arrive while I was there. There were rumours that the 27 engines, taken in the past few days from fire stations around London, had been stationed at Southwark overnight.

The firefighters told me that six people were needed to crew each engine. That means that AssetCo's workforce must be about 162 people. 100 stations will have been without cover today. It's doubtful whether even the AssetCo crewed engines were fully operational.

Morale was high on the picket line but it's true to say, I think, that the firefighters are bemused by what is happening to them. Their union is prepared to negotiate over possible changes to shift patterns; but they cannot do anything when the whole workforce of 5,600 firefighters is threatened with the sack. The 90-day notice that London Fire Brigade, and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority with its chair Brian Coleman behind it, has issued to firefighters runs out in mid-November. What will happen next depends to a large extent on what ordinary Londoners do in the next few days and weeks.

There is a lot that we can do to support the firefighters. Email a message of support to isupportmyfirefighters@london.fbu.org.uk. Visit the fire stations on the next strike day - this is scheduled for Monday 1 November, between 10am and 6pm. You could visit your local station from 9am when crews are likely to be getting ready for the strike. Write a letter to your councillor, MP or GLA member. Yes, even if that happens to be Brian Coleman. He needs to know that he does not have the support of Londoners for his attacks on the FBU.

Keep up to date with the London FBU website.

There are a few of my pictures here of Hendon fire station, and also of the march against cuts in central London today which, naturally, featured the FBU.

Support London's firefighters tomorrow!

London's firefighters will hold an eight-hour strike tomorrow, Saturday 23rd October, from 10am, in protest at the plan to sack them all if they do not accept new contracts. They are inviting Londoners to visit them at fire stations when they walk out at 10am. A fair number of firefighters will also go on the march against cuts organised by the RMT and the firefighters' own union, the FBU.

The march assembles at 11am at the RMT's head office, Unity House, 39 Chalton Street, NW1 1JD, which is close to Euston and St Pancras stations. Map here. It is marching to a rally at TUC Congress House in Great Russell Street.

Greg Edwards, the FBU rep for Barnet, says:

Please feel free to visit the fire stations. Strike is due to start at 10.00hrs on Saturday and there will be a main picket at Hendon Fire Station where we are expecting an AssetCo run private fire engine to be based.

AssetCo is the private company given a £12 million contract and 27 of our fire engines in order to try and break the strike. The chief executive, John Shannon, wines and dines Brian Coleman and gave him a £350 Harvey Nichols hamper. We are so blessed in Barnet that everyone wants to shower gifts on our councillors - and they never expect anything in return.

A list of the 27 stations where it is expected that AssetCo will be operating, and which will, therefore, have pickets tomorrow is available on the London FBU website.

Brian Coleman: more interested in saving a pound than saving a life

Here in Barnet we are well practised in disliking Brian "Mr Toad" Coleman. We have many causes to resent him: for taking our money in allowances, and ignoring what we say, and being rude to us. We have had our bellyfull of Coleman and would dearly love to be rid of him.

As we know, he has other ponds to paddle in, other sources of cash to tap, other constituencies to offend. As well as being a councillor in Totteridge ward, he is the GLA member for the whole of Barnet and Camden. It is rumoured that he will not make the shortlist next time the Tory candidate for that post is chosen.

Let's hope so! In the meantime, alas, he can do untold damage to services that millions of Londoners rely on in his capacity as chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. (Just think of it: the emergency services in London are ultimately run by Brian Coleman.)

Boris Johnson is alleged to dislike Brian Coleman - join the club! Now get rid of him!

I went to the march then protest at LFEPA HQ today, organised by the London Region FBU. London's firefighters have been threatened with the sack unless they accept new shift patterns. The idea is to move from the day time shift and longer night time shift, to two 12-hour shifts. Firefighters would be expected to be on alert all night, instead of having standdown time when they can get vital rest: no human being operates as well at night as they do in the daytime. Management also hope they will be able to cut out some of the shifts altogether, that is, reduce fire cover.

I think that fully half of London's firefighters went on the march today; which is to say that all of London's firefighters who were not at work went on the march today. It was a really great sight, most were wearing their smart Brigade uniforms. Not only are people like Coleman reckless with firefighters' jobs and conditions of service, they are also gratuitously rude to firefighters. Today's demonstration was dignified. Firefighters are proud of what they do. For the most part, the public support them. The FBU had commissioned a poll which shows overwhelming public opposition to the LFEPA/LFB plans.

Hopefully, LFEPA will see sense and it won't come to a strike (Coleman will never see sense). But if it does come to a strike, I think the London firefighters will see it through, and I think the London public will back them.

And, yes, from what I saw today, London's firefighters really, really dislike Brian Coleman. Almost as much as we in Barnet do.

More pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/11722019@N03/sets/72157624845022885/with/4996520628/ (please credit if you use any and you don't know me well: Vicki Morris).


General secretary of the FBU Matt Wrack with the odious Mr Toad in the background

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.

Government gunning for London's firefighters

This story has been lurking about in the background for a while. Now, in an attempt to impose shift changes, London Fire Authority, which employs London's 5,000 firefighters, has given them 90 days' notice of termination of contract. According to this Morning Star report:

London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson wrote to the government and Fire Brigades Union (FBU) leader Matt Wrack to tell them the authority was opening consultation on "terminating the contracts of these staff and offering to re-engage them on new contracts of employment."

...London FBU executive council member Ian Leahair said members will be balloted for action short of strike immediately, with the possibility of a city-wide strike at the end of October if the authority does not rescind its threat.

During the last major firefighters' dispute in 2002-3, the strikers were covered by soldiers using the ageing Green Goddess appliances, which have since been retired.

But this time, Mr Leahair said, the authority planned to call on privateer Assetco - which leases fire engines to the London Fire Brigade - to "roll out the red fire engines" crewed by a "dad's army of retained firefighters and security contractors" given only three weeks' training.

We know who has been dining at the expense of AssetCo, don't we? Our own Brian Coleman, chair and leader of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA). Tory Troll blogger Adam Bienkov has drawn together the threads of this story.