Brian Coleman's inside leg measurement

With just days till the lobby of Barnet council on Tuesday 2 November (6pm, Hendon Town Hall), I am hard at work making props including a Brian Coleman guy. Someone quipped tonight that I might have trouble finding enough stuffing. Someone else suggested I shrink my ambitions and make a voodoo doll (apparently, she has one - something to do with Coleman trying to sack her pregnant sister and then run her over - I'll have to check that one: sounds a bit OTT, even for Brian Coleman).

Anyway, I think I have found the place to buy an outfit to dress my guy: Gold's Factory Outlet - "the Big Red Building on Golders Green Road (as advertised on LBC News)".

"BOGOF," the website proclaims (That's "Buy One, Get One Free", let me remind you - not Coleman's catchphrase).

"Gold's believe they can fit anyone." Not sure if they will find room for Coleman's ego, but with "a huge variety of sizes, up to 72 inch chest and 62 inch waist" they should, just about, be able to accommodate his girth.

As Barnet ephemera goes, the history of Gold's is pretty interesting too. Read about it here.

FBU statement on Coleman's no-show; support rally tomorrow

The Fire Brigades Union has issued the statement below in response to today's much advertised but non-existent talks between the union and Brian Coleman:

Last night on national television, the leader of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), Brian Coleman, invited us to conciliation talks at 9am this morning. It’s dreadfully disappointing that after four hours there was still no sign of him or the Chief Fire Officer, Ron Dobson. Regrettably, the brigade representatives in attendance had nothing new to say to us.

Where was Councillor Coleman at 9am, having said that he would be here in talks with us? He is not taking this issue with the seriousness that firefighters and Londoners expect of the leader of the LFEPA.

The LFEPA proposals on new working hours would seriously disrupt firefighters’ family lives and lead to cuts in fire cover. All the same, the LFEPA does not have to reach agreement with us on shifts to get us to call off the strikes. They just have to withdraw the sacking notices that were sent out on August 11th.

Our message is that we will cancel all planned strikes if the brigade agrees to lift the mass sackings. We can then negotiate a fair settlement as equal parties.

For further information please contact:-

Francis Beckett 020 8349 9194 07813 001372

Helen Hague 020 8340 75571 07889 792360

If anyone is in central London tomorrow evening, Thursday 28 October, from 6-8pm there is a rally and meeting in support of the FBU being held at Trades Union Congress House, Great Russell Street, WC1B 3LS. Come and hear the firefighters' side of the story.

Coleman won't get out of bed to avert fire strikes

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.

Guardian: easyCouncil costs more than it saves

Today's Guardian reports how easyCouncil has so far cost more than it has saved.

The Conservative-controlled north London council has committed to spending £1.5m this financial year on a much-hyped reform programme to help close a yawning budget gap, but it is on course to recoup just £1.4m in savings in the year.

The council's funding shortfall is set to hit £15m next year, and the borough has tried to innovate through its "One Barnet" programme. This includes paying to develop a system of "life coaches" to persuade residents to reduce dependence on the state, appointing business consultants to help town hall officials and even opening a library in a branch of Starbucks in a pilot which could result in the closure of some library buildings.

The programme is budgeted to deliver savings of £13m a year by 2014, about a third of the total cuts planned by the council. It had been projected to save £3m by the end of the financial year, but Lynne Hillan, council leader, has now admitted the savings will be less than half of that.

Read it all here.

Barnet council: making it cheaper to sack people

Often the most interesting business in the council goes through at meetings that don't draw public attention. Last night at the General Functions Committee, among other things, Barnet council decided to cut the amount it will pay to staff it makes redundant.

The work of a few minutes. The council unions were there to observe, of course. They have known that this is coming. Bizarrely, during the period of consultation, the council said to the unions: what can you offer us? No answer came the stern reply. What are unions? Turkeys voting for Christmas? Why would they help the council to make it cheaper to sack staff? It's clear why the council wants to do this: they want to sack staff. Why would any union help with that?

So there is some waffle in the document presented last night which says:

The Trade Unions were invited to work with the Council to draw up a new Policy and to present this to General Functions Commitee as a joint report. Whilst the Council recognised that this was a different approach it was hoped that the Trade Unions would embrace this way of working, in particular so that they could have a meaningful contribution, by for example introducing innovative ideas aligned to their members interests. Unfortunately the Council has had to revert to a traditional negotiation model, rather than the partnership working which had been offered.

So, the traditional negotiation model being employed, the council has decided to: make it cheaper to sack people. About half what it would have been (which was not all that expensive), the statutory minimum.

Since the rough figures presented to the Cabinet last week showed that they plan to sack 430 people next year, we know why they have done this.

The unions had held a consultative ballot which showed overwhelmingly that Barnet council employees did not agree with the policy of making it cheaper to sack people.

I will find out later today how the council unions will respond to this attack. Barnet residents who value their council services and the people that work in them should be ready to back the unions in any action they take. No to sackings! No to the cuts!

Barnet Alliance for Public Services planning meeting tonight
6-8pm, Greek Cypriot Community Centre, 2 Britannia Rd, London N12 9RU

Brian Coleman: the grinch that stole bonfire night

Brian Coleman's intransigence in his dealings with London's 5,600 firefighters, threatened with the sack if they do not accept new contracts, has meant that bonfire night will be cancelled this year. And Diwali too.

The firefighters' union, London region FBU, has quite reasonably told Coleman and the London Fire Brigade that they are not prepared to work over two of the busiest days of the year with such a threat hanging over their heads.

Thus, they will not be at work from 10am on Friday 5 November until 9am on Sunday 7 November.

Obviously this will be a sore disappointment to people who have been piling up old wood for a bonfire and buying fireworks. Myself, I was very much looking forward to sending my guy up in flames.

However, there is still time to save bonfire night. Email Brian Coleman to express your disappointment and urge him to withdraw the sacking threat to London's firefighters: cllr.b.coleman@barnet.gov.uk.

How to make a guy

Good old (!?) internet. There I was looking at doing something elaborate with a pillow when I found this advice for how to make a guy:

just stuff old clothes with dry straw and make a paper mache balloon head and put a mask on

(Just be careful you don't get it mixed up with advice on 'how to make a guy like you'.)
 
Now, all I need is the mask, oh, and an old pushchair to put my guy in and a bunch of kids to push it around. "Penny for the guy" - or should that be, Harvey Nichols hamper? Any money raised goes to the London region FBU strike fund.

Coleman relaxes as London burns

Brian Coleman's powers of relaxation are world-renowned. In the picture above we can see him relaxing at work.

In the last few days he has pronounced himself relaxed at the prospect of Barnet residents getting the keys to council grit bins this winter (no issue is beneath his consideration), but also, alarmingly, about the idea of sacking all of London's 5,600 firefighters.

He says he can replace the trained and experienced workforce quickly.

Presumably he is also fairly relaxed about the money he has thrown away on the AssetCo contract: £12 million. (It's not his money, after all.) I say thrown away, because this private company, given 27 of Londoners' fire engines to run during the FBU strike on Saturday, in no way rose to the challenge. Only about 11 of the alloted stations were covered; crews crashed engines; fires went out of control. Because of Coleman's gung-ho attitude to industrial relations, and intense relaxation at the thought of exposing others to risk, London was left without fire cover for eight hours.

Another eight-hour strike is scheduled for Monday 1 November. If Coleman cannot stop relaxing and start showing some responsibility, hopefully the people around him can. Coleman will not move out of his complacency until someone sticks a firework up his arse and lights it. Until that happens, London will burn.

The trades council and Barnet Alliance for Public Services has called a lobby of the council -Tuesday 2 November, 6-7pm, at Hendon Town Hall. Hopefully the dispute with the Fire Brigades Union will be resolved by then. If not, make this the night that you come and tell Coleman to stop playing with our lives.

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.