Cuts ,just had this sent from my cousin in Manchester .

Its funny how our Fire Dept. managed to send a fully rigged Fire Engine and 5 firefighters to carry out a “fire inspection”of our premises recently. The place is so small they could barely all fit in my office. Even they laughed at the ridicule of it. Extinguishers ✅ alarm ✅ fire procedures ✅ escape route ✅ see you next year ✅

I am in there alone almost all the time which they knew from last year and the year before and the year before that.....

Maybe the government can’t keep up with their pensions so cutting numbers is the only way forward.

Don’t firefighters call a fire engine a fire appliance?

Disgusting !! Charity " desperately " begins at home so why oh why does the government send billions in foreign aid ? I'm so against this when I see our own country and its emergency services suffering. Everyone who works in these services has my appreciation and gratitude for what they selflessly do and deserve more than they're given credit for.

Yes I think they do Alima although I prefer to call them Nee-Nah’s .

Let’s not bother with all those wasteful fire inspections shall we? I’m sure all workplaces are perfect. I for one support our firefighters and am opposed to cuts of our emergency services. Police, ambulance, firefighters why bother - let’s give more tax cuts to the wealthy.

Are you trying to say fire fighters are poor crystaltips ? Who mentioned tax cuts for the wealthy?

Fire inspections are indeed vital but not when you are picked on for being perfect and they do not inspect genuine death traps ! Our factory is immaculate . We tick every box with bells on. Next door to me is a sh*t hole death trap but they don’t inspect there. The factory on the end of us ( with a trade counter open to the public) is another one but they don’t inspect there either . No consistency whatsoever . Even the fire people themselves agree .

As I said, this was sent by my english cousin in Manchester ,as it was published in The Times I imagined it had been validated .I dont buy or read The Times maybe someone will tell me if they usually publish things that are spin...lies ...fiction ?The only firefighter I know has always called them fire engines ,he's as old as me though so maybe younger ones call them appliances .

Mark Rowe put this message on his Facebook page in 2015, and it went viral.
It's all true, but it's very old 'news'!

As I'm from an 'Emergency Services' family, with relatives in both the Police and Fire Service, I know exactly now hard they are being hit by cuts.
The Times have the details correct, they're just three years late publishing it!
If anyone thinks Firefighters are paid too much or have too generous a pension, ask yourself this.......
Would you be prepared to run into a burning building, risking your own life to save that of a complete stranger? Unless your answer is an immediate 'yes', shut up!

It has to be said ...if Grenfell Towers had annual rigorous 'inspections' , things may have been very different.
We need our fire stations and all those brave firemen.
Cut foreign aid to China?

Yes, I agree that the horribly wasteful foreign aid budget should be cut. India has a space programme yet still we pour vast sums into it each year. Other countries have corrupt leaders who siphon off the money we so generously send their way.

The money is desperately needed here, yet this crazy vanity project goes on and on.

First if all, public spending was cut ( for obvious reasons )
But things were worked out so as not to affect public safety,
Secondly, this was written by a Union man with an agenda.
It would have to be proved that members of the public died as a direct result of ‘cuts’ as most deaths occur due to smoke inhalation.
We cannot believe anything put on social media by somebody with a political agenda. Hard evidence is needed first.

Cuts to the police force were worked out the same way, any violent crime is given immediate precedence and responded to very quickly.

We live in very strange times . It seems that the Police are more likely to turn up if someone is called a name than if a house is burgled in the middle of the night .

I can’t remember which daft politician said rising crime had nothing to do with police numbers. Might as well have none at all by that logic. I’d rather have a police service that did respond to burglaries, fraud etc and were visible on the streets to deter street crime , and ambulances which didn’t take hours to arrive. Let’s hope those apologists for cuts to emergency services aren’t in need of one of them any time soon.

Or how about that case of the police being called to attend to a 'hate crime' at a filling station.

A woman motorist beeped her horn at the customer ahead of her, as she was faffing about and holding the queue up.

The woman who was tooted was black. She got out of her car screaming abuse at the other woman, played the racist card of course, and stormed into the petrol station demanding the police be called for the supposed 'hate crime'

Somehow the police seemed to have the manpower to attend that non event.

Exactly what I mean JenniferEccles this country has gone bonkers !

It has gillybob

We all like to think that, perish the thought, if we were burgled, the police would come running, but sadly I don't think that would happen.

What is really terrifying for us all is that the criminals are very well aware of the current situation.

Prompted by my son and DH, I watched a program last night about the rising theft of keyless cars . The thieves buy special equipment cheaply off the internet and use it to duplicate the signal from your keyfob (usually stored inside the house) . It was quite horrific . One young father said the burglars came into his house while his children slept in their bed ! When called the police didn’t even turn up ! A spokeswoman for the police said they see this as a very low priority crime! I couldn’t believe my ears to be honest .

'A low priority crime' That's unbelievable.

I wish more money had been given to the police in the Budget, but even then it's about more than just numbers isn't it?

Surely the money could be found from somewhere. I suggested the foreign aid budget.

I despair at the level of denial, dismissal and ridicule shown by some posters here to genuine concerns about the impact of cuts on our public services.

Thanks to crystal tips and granniesue for attempting to bring some serious balance here.

I think the story in the OP is three years old but has just been raised again online because no progress has been made and in fact, more cuts are planned.