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

(67 Posts)
paddyann Fri 09-Nov-18 11:09:35

I am Mark Rowe I have been a firefighter in Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service for 28yrs and I will not remain silent.

Most organisations have a social media policy but sometimes there are some things that are so important they must be said regardless of any personal consequences. If anybody wishes to report me to my employer please feel free to do so because the things I am about to say I believe to be undisputed facts. I am the Brigade Secretary of Merseyside Fire Brigades Union so I speak with authority, with knowledge and with facts.

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service has over the past 5yrs (as a consequence of the Conservative led coalition and now as the Conservative majority government) been forced to cut the number of fire engines from 42 to 28, this number will be cut again shortly to 24. There will, by the end of 2020, potentially have been 10 Community Fire Station closures taking the numbers down from 26 to 16 (potentially less in worst case scenarios). Fire deaths since 2005 in Merseyside have trebled, cuts cost lives is not just a soundbite it is a reality.

Due to these Conservative cuts fire engines have to travel from further afield as attendance times have increased. The majority of Community Fire Stations now have only one fire engine so if that fire engine is already at a fire back up engines have to travel from significantly further away. The second fire engine responding to your house fire also as a consequence has to travel from further away. Slower attendance times mean fires are more developed by the time firefighters get to the scene increasing risk to the public and also to firefighters who are committed into a more developed fire environment. Firefighter numbers have been cut in just over a decade from 1200 to 680 and as a result of the next round of Conservative cuts that number will fall to potentially 460 or less. It is my view that members of the public will continue to die as a result of these cuts and that those deaths will increase.

Shocking situation,surely even tory voters cant believe this shoule be happening

oldbatty Sat 10-Nov-18 13:01:32

www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/03/cutting-number-stop-and-searches-behind-rise-crime

paddyann Sat 10-Nov-18 13:09:52

Crime is at a 40 year low in Scotland ,knife crime is down considerably with NO thats NO deaths from knife crime in Glasgow in 2017 .Stats aren't in for this year.Police numbers are up and according to the nursing union, nurses and midwife applications are up for the 5th year in a row,just read that online .
Now that may be because they are getting a decent rise or because nursing burseries have gone up to £10,000 a year .
Whatever is helping we should be happy that government policy here is making sure we get people in jobs we need ,especially when we'll lose some with Brexit .My cousin who sent me the OP is on the verge of moving here although she has never lived here and was born south of the border and she sends me posts about how bad things are becoming in her area

.By the way Michelin in Dundee are closing because they never updated their production line and the tyres they were making aren't really in use much now.The SNP leader has promised to try to persuade Michelin to upgrade the plant .She has got a good reputation on saving jobs as she has saved otherfactories by stepping in recently.

PECS Sat 10-Nov-18 13:13:48

The people to direct anger and disgruntlement at are not other workers in different organisations but the profit hungry fat cats at the top level of multi national global companies and their political chums.
Capitalist governments rely on the fact they can divide and rule the electorate. If they can make workforce A blame workforce B or the indigenous worker blame an immigrant worker for all the ills citizens are suffering then at least the government can get on profiteering for themselves and their mates!

PECS Sat 10-Nov-18 13:25:38

Lemongrove of course I remember the crash. I have several friends & relatives who ran their own businesses, who lost their pensions and income as their firms collapsed.
I worked,for a time, for a local authority and saw first hand the decimation of services through reduction of personnel: social care, SEND provision, highways, education, refuse collection etc etc.
The public, understandably, want the same level of service as when there was better investment.
I am fully aware too of the need for value for money..which does not just mean cuts! It means efficiency..cut too far and efficiency is not possible.

mcem Sat 10-Nov-18 13:53:55

I simply think folk who work hard and conscientiously day in and day out should be rewarded for their labour whatever their occupation.
I resent those who have highly paid sinecures (MPs come to mind) or are paid a fortune for 'endorsements' (e.g. sports stars).
I hate to think that the powerful and cynical can encourage dissent and dissatisfaction in the workforce as a whole while they take in their millions.

gillybob Sat 10-Nov-18 14:11:40

Considering I live in a very impoverished part of the country we don’t have a great deal of serious crime here . I can’t imagine what it must be like to live in London where it seems there are murders every day suggesting the link isn’t as cut and dry as some would believe .

PECS Sat 10-Nov-18 14:15:55

MPs have £77k annual salary plus expenses. Non London/ home counties MPs have to maintain two residences and pay for staff.
Some MPs may earn every £ of their money..there are few great people motivated by the drive to improve the lives of their electotate. Some do not! Many of course earn additional salaries.
Personally I would want to see tighter controls on "expenses".
However I know my friend whose husband worked for a large IT company now has a million plus valued home basrd entirely on the fact that when they had to move for work there was a very generous removal package which was claimed to the max : all removal / legal costs/ estate agent fees , money for new furniture & fittings etc. etc. So sometime private business can be a good deal too!

TerriBull Sat 10-Nov-18 14:18:11

Regarding knife crime, which several posters have alluded to on this thread. I don't want to comment on stop and search, I can see arguments for and against. However, reading about, what seems to be an almost daily occurrence, young men being stabbed to death, often so young they have baby faces, I heard one commentator say these stabbing used to be about "respect" now it's all about drugs and turf war. Harriet Harman, and she should know, her constituency covers Peckham, has made the observation that "drill" music, an offshoot of hip hop is a driving factor in this type of gang warfare, maybe it just pertains to London, I don't know. The modus operandi of this new phenomenon is for gang members to upload their videos on to YouTube where they rap about their murderous intentions, and if they have, been able to wipe out an opponent, then they go into a graphic description of how that was accomplished. Needless to say, like all tech companies, YouTube have not being censoring the content and have done very little to take these drill videos down. That should be their job, surely it's against the law to incite violence in this way.

PECS Sat 10-Nov-18 15:48:30

There has been a horrible increase in these unnecessary deaths.

It is mainly within a particular community: poor black youngsters.
It coincides with cuts to police funding/ numbers in the Met.

The previous mayor, at the time, had the ear & support of the government.

Is it a councidence that, since Sadiq Khan has been mayor, funding for improvement to police funding has not been forthcoming?

lemongrove Sat 10-Nov-18 15:57:08

Sajid Javid ( Home Sec) allocated £150,000 yesterday to allow more businesses join the ‘safe haven’ schemes for youngsters when they leave school in the afternoons, as part of an £18 million effort to reduce violent crime.
About £500,00 will go towards targeting young people up to age 25 who are being exploited or at risk through criminal
Drug dealing operations.
Yes Terri the ‘drill’ music ( ghastly) and drug turf wars are
Are horrible.

TerriBull Sat 10-Nov-18 16:44:48

I think some of these are factors in being involved in gang membership, machismo, status, control and lack of male role models. Some of those characteristics are evident indrill videos glorifying violent acts, the participants often obscure their faces with scarves. Harriet Harman is right to say they are pernicious, but she has been criticised by Momentum for doing so.

oldbatty Sat 10-Nov-18 18:24:01

so back to the Mothers from Black Communities who wish to see Stop and Search reinstated?

petra Sat 10-Nov-18 19:00:42

I wonder if the escalation of shootings/ stabbing/ drug running ( particularly in London) would have been as bad if Kids Company had still been operating.
I know Camila was a very diversive figure but she kept a huge amount of children off the streets who would have gone the wrong way.
It was only 3 yrs ago that the charity folded.
I supported it from the very beginning and went to many art exhibitions where some of these very disturbed children could only tell their story through art.

oldbatty Sat 10-Nov-18 22:12:10

no? nobody wishes to comment on mothers from black communities?

Iam64 Sun 11-Nov-18 08:05:29

Nissan said it was likely that it would leave the north east if Britain left the EU

Of course cuts to all areas of public service have impacted negatively on crime including knife crime. I wouldn’t support Camilla Kidsclub in any way.

Pallmall1964 Mon 12-Nov-18 18:24:10

Forget for a moment about how much these services are paid.last week in the town where I live two people died waiting over five hours for an ambulance,it's the public because of the cuts who are going to suffer.disabled people who live on there own are only given fifteen minutes care package in the morning and late afternoon to get them up and put them to bed,one of them being my neighbour who is Paralysed.i had never heared of food banks till these cuts.austerity is a choice