The Llantrisant Meeting - Who do you trust with your lives?

Now pay attention Huw and listen to Blaina

Right, now where were we.  Oh yes, that's right. 

Yesterday, I told you about the Blaina delegation who attended the meeting of the South Wales Fire Authority, where the Fire Authority voted to send the proposal to endanger the lives of the people of the valley by closing down Blaina Fire Station to a scrutiny committee.

Now the reactions of many people to this news, was disappointment that the Fire Authority had not rejected the proposal outright, but given the size of the the rebuttal submitted to them by the Fire Service just days before the Llantrisant meeting, I think the decision was a wise one for several different reasons.

From my own "perspective", it was a decision that I personally expected and welcomed, as it gives us more time to maneuver, make new friends, identify those we need to lobby and lastly, to warn off potential supporters of this criminal and shameful proposal to risk the lives of those we love, that they will not be forgotten or forgiven if they hold or ever seek political positions.

Right so let us have a look at who else was present.

Well obviously the Fire Authority Members themselves of which there were 18 present with some apologies received for (I think) the other six who could not attend for various reasons.

The meeting itself, was chaired by the Chairman of the Fire Authority, Tudor Davies of Caerphilly, who also sits on numerous other committees (wonder how much they cost), and so is an old hand at this game and so conducted the meeting in a dry emotionless fashion, which is what was needed.

He dropped the ball only once that I noticed, and that was when he skipped an item that the authority were required to vote on, for which he needed to be pulled up on and return to.

Going anti-clockwise around a huge doughnut shaped conference table, were sat the 18 FA Members and I was disappointed to see that the majority of them appeared to be even older than I, which worries me.

I worry because it means that they may not be computer literate, and therefore difficult to educate regarding the truth of the flawed proposal submitted by Common Purpose graduate, Huw Jakeway. 

Now personally, I have little time for politicians or bureaucrats, but this campaign as proven an eye opener for me regarding just how difficult and hard a County Councillors life can be should they do it properly, and so now, I have nothing but the highest respect for Councillors such as our own Lisa Winnett who work extremely hard for very little or no thanks (not that she would expect any).

Apart from the Blaina Delegation, the meeting was witnessed by approximately 25 other individuals, of which I would say, at least 50% of were fairly senior officers of the Fire Service, but I am ex Royal Navy and so not familiar with their badges of rank or the uniforms they wear.

To the Chairman's left, sat the main act for the day,  Sally (Barbie Girl) Chapman, whose correct title is Deputy Chief Officer (will return to this), who had brought along the puppet Chief Fire Officer Huw (Barbie Ken) Jakeway to sit on her left and look serious and concerned.  

Ms Chapman, who (from a distance) unfortunately looked a bit like a cross between Myra Hindley and Margaret Thatcher, then proceeded to try and justify the Fire Service's indefensible document by seeming to read out the entire document in perhaps one of the most boring voices I have ever had to endure in ALL the meetings I have ever attended.  It was painful.

Only the content of what she was repeating from the document held me in my seat, that, and the fact that I wanted to see how the Fire Authority voted, otherwise I would have been out of that room in a shot, looking for a treatment for bleeding ears.

Now I know Barbie cannot help her appearance and I am equally sure that she has no deliberate desire to murder young children, however it is quite possible that her actions, should she succeed in closing down Blaina Fire Station, may bring about the deaths of children in the future.

However of this I am certain.  Like Margaret Thatcher, she is a cold ambitious woman and her false sincerity when she spoke about her ridiculous computer program that predicts the number of expected deaths (8) by fires in the next 100 years made me almost puke all over their nice, fancy conference room.

And why did she select 100 years as the computer date range?  Who is going to be about to show her she was wrong in 100 years?  The woman is barking mad. 

Did her fancy program "predict" these deaths where another lunatic murdered an entire family by setting fire to their home?  Of course it did not.

No program or person can predict acts like the terrible one I just linked to, where the mother screams out; "I'm  burning, I'm on Fire" before succumbing to the flames in a terrible death.

One thing I do know, is that should something like that happen (God forbid) in our community then I want our local fire station to still be around so they can be there in five minutes and not over ten minutes, which will be case should Barbie Girl get her way.

Remember the Fire Service themselves say that minutes make the difference between life and death.

Do not let the screams of trapped neighbours burning to death haunt you, because you did not prevent Jakeway and Chapman closing our station.

Regarding their much vaunted computer program, I was gently chastised during the meeting for muttering "Liar" when Barbie, for the second time stated how accurate and reliable her computer prediction program was, because Sally Chapman was actually opposite me when one of her flunkies admitted to me in public that the data on the system was probably inaccurate.

When I pointed out to Steve that the information on their computer system was incorrect, as was pointed out by others, Steve asked what "system" did not contain "errors", which left the goal open for me to respond with "so you admit that you are supporting a proposal that you have just publicly admitted you know to contain inaccurate data to produce a report where peoples lives may be at risk".

For those of you who are interested in some real and truthful computer statistics about the cost of fires and fatalities, then I refer you to this earlier article that I wrote back in October of last year - I recommend that members of the Fire Authority and those on the scrutiny committee also read it.

"The challenging economic climate is having a significant impact on the fire danger. While the numbers of fires may have been falling, the increase in large-scale fires is increasingly putting lives at risk, and puts more pressure on businesses in these already difficult trading times."

Now I am not going to go through all the points raised in the 800 pages of the two documents in this article, but rest assured, over the coming weeks and months, we will go through them together.

Hopefully, by the time we start to destroy the Fire Service proposals, the entire Fire Authority and Scrutiny Committee will be regular readers of this site and so discover the truth and be immune to the Fire Service, life threatening spin.

Now before we move onto the "spare prick at a wedding", the Chief Fire Officer, Huw Jakeway, I promised you I would tell you why he and Sally Chapman were called Ken and Barbie by the fire fighters in Wales.

Barbie Chapman likes to dress up as a firefighter

Yesterday, I wrote that Sally Chapman is known as Barbie (a famous plastic toy bimbo with blonde hair).  The reason you see, is that Barbie is just an air head toy that can be dressed up in costumes and it has not gone unnoticed by real Fire Fighters, that the Deputy Chief of the Fire Service is not and never has been a Firefighter - but who as you can see from the image above likes to dress up and wear a uniform that many would say she is not entitled to wear.

That is why they call her Barbie and why she signed the documents as Deputy Chief Officer.

With so many real Fire Officers present at the meeting, she wisely decided to wear civilian clothing to address the Fire Authority in her civilian clothing, which should give you a clue to the direction the Fire Service is going - private ownership by money grabbing, money grubbing bean counters.

Now there was a time, when the Fire Service was about protecting lives and not saving pennies or as the new masters plan, making money for cronies of the government, you had to have been a serving Fire Officer to rise to the top - but that rule was dropped so that the foundations of privatisation could be laid by injecting into the system, people like Sally Chapman, who was appointed to her position in 2012 after training as a public sector lawyer and working (preparing/grooming) as an advisor to the Fire and Authority Members.  Watch your six Huw, watch your six.

Hi, My name is Ken, I'm Barbies playmate

Well Barbie girls all know that plastic dolls need plastic boyfriends called "Ken" and that is what Huw Jakeway's new nickname is, he is Ken to Sally's Barbie - what a way to end a career.  I suppose the fact that Huw also likes to strike poses did not help his image among real men and so I guess it was to be expected.

However, what happened at the end of the meeting in Llantrisant revealed to me the contempt that not only I but his own staff appear to have for the man.  I truly felt pity for him.

After Ms Chapman thankfully finished spouting off (if she had mispronounced Brynmawr (she does not even know where the place is) just one more time, I would have had to have said something) and the voting took place, Huw Jakeway got to say a few words.

And a few words they were.  All through the meeting, he sat in Sally's shadow - Ken knows that Barbie is the real star and Huw knew yesterday, that he is no more than the rubber stamp to Sally's real power.

I would like to report on what he actually said, but as he was speaking, all I could hear was the rustle of papers being shuffled, chairs being pulled back,talking and people leaving the room.  I truly felt pity for the man and as I left I looked across to where he still sat and nodded to him, I think he nodded back but he sure did look small, sad and insignificant.

Huw, you were a firefighter once, be one again.  Tell them to stuff their job and be a man again.