“In other words he wants to cut the number of fire engines by 27 – a 16% cut across the capital. Shocking.”

Is it? I’ve no idea but it’s not impossible to have over supply of even essential services. Quite where to go to for a disintrested analysis on what the “correct” level would be is another difficult one. The management want to cut costs so they’re biased, the Firemen will want to protect their position so they’re also going to be biased, (by biased I don’t mean that either side will be making stuff up just that they cannot be described as disinterested).

The idea that cuts are always good or always bad is rather unhelpful but that does seem to be the way the debate is going.

In other words he wants to cut the number of fire engines by 27 – a 16% cut across the capital. Shocking.

I have no brief for that berk Coleman, but Sunny… this is NOT what he said. Look again at your own quote.

2 – This is a sidebar piece. Sunny is constitutionally mandated to misrepresent the words of anybody he quotes, and then accuse anyone who points this out as lacking in humour.

Bienkov put it slightly differently in his piece

“Permanently removing all 27 would amount to an estimated 16% cut in the number of fire engines across the capital.”

No comment from Boris, as usual.

Sunny… this is NOT what he said. Look again at your own quote.

How come the right wing trolls only find their own jokes funny- complete sense of humour failure from Flowerpower.

Once again he is trying to let facts detract from the hysteria Sunny was trying to foment.

#2 – no he’s talking about banning dancing fairies from having their annual conference at fire depots.

The quote you provide does not support the allegation that he wants to cut all those 27 fire engines.

He says he wants to look at whether they’re all needed. Maybe that’ll mean some cuts – maybe it’ll mean all 27 being cut. But that’s not what the quote says, and you’re just speculating but dressing it up as fact.

SOrry, Sunny but you’ve ballsed this one up.

The quote states:

“…on whether the Brigade needs all 27 of the fire appliances removed from stations during the current industrial action to be returned or whether there is an over-supply of appliances”

So, 27 appliances have been removed.

Coleman’s questioning whether they need all of them returned, or whether there is over supply.

The quote as it stands suggests numerous possibilities.

One possibility is that permanent removal of all 27 is only one possibility. Another possibility is that he could decide to return all of them.

Yet still, another possibility is that he could return 26 and keep one out, or return 1 and keep 26 out.

Sorry, but with the quote you’ve provided you can’t make the assertion there is going to be a 16% cut in appliances.

I’m no Tory troll, by the way (check the link to my blog if you like), but we on the left need to be doing it more accurately than the right as we don;t have the complacency of mainstream media support to fall back on.

Those who still deny that the Tories have conspired to cause this confrontation and that their proposals are simply as stated must be suffering from Nelsonian blindness.

In case you need more: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23895818-tories-propose-500-firefighter-cuts-after-strike.do?ref=nf

@ 7

he’s talking about banning dancing fairies from having their annual conference at fire depots.

Care to supply any evidence for this? Sounds as fishy as your estimate of the deficit on another thread.

Not at all – in fact James O’Brien exposes this on LBC today. Listen to the whole thing from here, and he quotes Adam Beinkov’s blog

http://lbc.audioagain.com/player_popup.php?channel_id=100&user_id=50246&sec_id=0cddeb908c49b579447c5f11a44780d2e3ad41a1&guid=2010-11/09/74a18c3e6751f10ed894817cacac33b2

This dispute is being deliberately engineered by Coleman in order to try to demonstrate that the private sector can step in and provide a cheaper fire service dealing with minor incidents and reducing the regular fire fighters to deal with legitimate emergencies. Watch this space?