Hot Take

Ten years ago the first Bullingdon Club administration and its Liberal Democrat enablers decided that fire services could spare a billion pounds or thereabouts. With all those immigrants running around, subsequent administrations have seen little reason to douse the flames of thrift; so equally naturally, in the seven years since the first anniversary of the Grenfell Tower disaster, the number of firefighters in England has been efficientised by some twenty-five per cent. Since the climate is heating up and the workload of fire departments has increased by some twenty per cent, it is only British that fire departments should have undergone the standard public-sector process of slashing, burning and being left to rot; it only remains to be seen how the Team Starmer plan for Change™ will redistribute resources between keeping things as they are and increasing the combustion-related profits of the private sector.