Since when does the tail wag the dog?

Huw Jakeway - His second lie.  His first lie was when he said publicly that he would meet with the people of Blaina and then ran away.

Before I rip into the Chief Fire Officer and asset stripper of the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, the Twittering, McDonald eating, golf playing Huw Jakeway, I would like to answer a few of my critics both within and outside of the Fire Service.

Some of you seem to think that I am too outspoken and others among you, that I am being a tad unfair towards the Chief Fire Officer, who you say is only doing his job and that he is really a nice guy.

Now let us address these three points.

1. It is only by speaking the truth in a blunt honest fashion will some people really understand the danger that Huw Jakeway and the people who really pull his strings are putting us in.
2. War criminals have always claimed at their trials that they were only doing their duty or their job, That defence has never been accepted by civilized people and those found guilty were quite rightly punished.
3. I am sure that Huw Jakeway is a lovely man to his family, just as I am sure there were monsters in history who were equally nice and loving to their family and friends whilst being responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions. 

Now that's out of the way, we can move on, but before we get to the meat we must have a short history lesson about the origins of the proposed cuts that would leave Blaina and Nantyglo without adequate fire cover and see the lives of those we love endangered for greed.

In February of last year, Labour MP Chris Leslie (one of the few decent MPs) spoke out angrily against this evil governments plans to privatize the Fire and Rescue Service and the disgusting way they (the government) pushed the changes in the law through via the Regulatory Reform Committee.

The correct and honourable way, should have been a new bill that would have then had to have been debated and passed by Parliament - which is the way things of this importance to our nation should be dealt with.

In the article I am referring to and which you can read here, the MP also spoke about the planned privatization to line the pockets of government business cronies at the expense of the British People.

I think it's a step too far. It's a different thing saying IT services or human resource management service within a fire fighting service should be outsourced, but to sell off everything is full scale privatisation.

Fire and rescue authorities will remain statutorily responsible for this public service and to suggest otherwise is completely wrong.

I don't think that profit should be at the forefront in fire and rescue protection.

If the public knew that the fire service was on the brink of privatisation, they would be absolutely appalled. The police or the ambulance service could be next in line. Our emergency services should not be privatised.

Where is the national outcry to these plans of this most evil of all governments and why aren't the Labour Party promising to reverse any cuts made?  Because it is not only Blaina Fire Station and its surrounding community that is threatened, but hundreds of stations around the entire United Kingdom.

Now the establishment have ALWAYS depended on the shameful apathy and ignorance of the majority of the British Public.  They know most of us do not read the papers or watch the news because of complete disillusionment with the system and that their actions around the country will go largely unnoticed and not seen as part of a larger more criminal operation, as people are only aware of events that effect them.  We must all learn to think outside our own little worlds.

Now the oily toe rag (and he is an oily professional toe rag) responsible for pushing through the theft of peoples safety, is Fire Minister Brandon Lewis MP, of whom the highly respected political website politics.co.uk  described  as one of the worst MP's on Twitter and wrote of him:

The sheer boredom of Lewis' comments prompts lethargy. They are a crime against vitality. His party political tweets suggest an inability to grasp the basic concepts of modern British politics along with rules of grammar and meaning.

Interesting fact about Brandon Lewis, is that when he successfully stood for Parliament in 2010 he did so on a "Clean Expenses Pledge" but of course once he had won his place at the parliamentary trough of public money, he proceeded to shove his snout in along with the rest and has since claimed a small fortune in taxpayers money by claiming expenses to rent a property in Great Yarmouth, whilst renting the house he owns there out for another large lump of money.   Politicians, don't you just love them.

Now it seems highly likely that this nasty bloated piece of work will lose his seat come the next general election when Labour will probably retake it but sadly until then we are stuck with him and his lying arrogance.

Lewis has caused further outrage by statements he has made blaming the Fire Service for the need for cuts because they have not done enough to make cut backs and said this of the recent justified action by the Fire Brigade Union.

I was pleased to see that there was almost a ‘business as usual’ service, during strike action and that many chief fire officers, if they spotted gaps, trained up resilience staff to fill them.
I commend those who used innovative measures to boost their resilience - I was really impressed by those fire and rescue authorities who ‘looked outside of the box’ in improving their resilience. I particularly wish to commend those firefighters and support workers who continued to work and protect their communities. I received letters from some who, despite pressure from union officials, felt protecting their communities was the right thing to do. They deserve our profound gratitude, and thanks.

Now we have to be honest here.  What sort of Fire Minister puts Fire Crews in the position of taking industrial action that they know will endanger the lives of the communities they serve or suffering their masters lashes until they are sacked when their stations are closed?   Talk about Rock and a Hard place.

I can understand why those who worked did, but that doesn't mean their actions were right - by failing to support their union they let down their comrades and have endangered the lives in the long term of those in the communities they live in when the stations are gone because they crossed a picket line.

Now you have been patient long enough.   Time for the real meat with an insight into the muddled mind of Huw Jakeway, who it seems believes that the Tail wags the Dog and not the dog wags the tail.

Read this mind boggling, breath taking paragraph from his column entitled A View from Huw,  that is on the front page of April's edition of SWire and Rescue in house magazine/news letter - I shall embolden the relevant part that is of interest.

"The Fire Cover Review proposals for Phase II were considered by our Fire and Rescue Authority on Monday 24 March 2014, which included the proposals to close Blaina Fire and Rescue Station and to remove the retained appliance from Cwmbran.  The Authority resolved, in principle, to approve these recommendations.  The Authority have requested local scrutiny from Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent County Borough Councils.  The scrutiny process will ensure that the decision of the Authority, our Elected Members was proportionate to the information that they considered and that the decision is justified, if any alternatives are available that the Authority are not aware of at that particular time and to review the evidence that the Members considered at the meeting.  The role of the scrutiny will not be to change the the decision of the Authority."

Such arrogance and one must wonder what the Chair and the Fire Authority Members plus those on the Scrutiny Committees make of the unelected Huw Jakeway effectively telling them what their function and responsibilities in this matter are and regardless of their findings, their work will change nothing.

Let me point something out to you Huw.   The reason for the Fire Authority agreeing in principle to the closure, was that it would force the issue to go to Scrutiny where the facts could be examined at leisure and in more depth - you know damned well it would have been impossible for the Fire Authority to go through the two supporting documents - totaling almost a thousand pages in just a few days.

Incidentally, I am still going through those files and finding more faults in your facts, logic and yes, even submitting information that you must know to be untrue.

Now that last sentence from your article.  Just who the hell are you Huw Jakeway, to tell OUR ELECTED representatives that regardless of the truth that WILL be revealed in those files that their findings will HAVE NO INFLUENCE or permit the Fire Authority to reverse their decision that was a stop gap operation.   You are just the tail Huw - best put it in your mouth and let the Fire Authority and Scrutiny Committees do their job.

Tomorrow I will be writing about the lie that Huw Jakeway made in public about risk and about the problems with the Fire Service computer system that I believe is feeding incorrect information to the controllers who dispatch the appliances that could well lead to loss of life.

I will also touch on the legal ramifications for Huw Jakeway should lives be lost because of his actions and publishing details from the report to the Fire Authority showing that whilst publicly he says that there will be no extra risk if the closures are permitted, he is taking action behind the scenes to ensure that he is not on the list of those who could face charges of corporate manslaughter.   Let us hope it does not come to that.

Finally, I would like to raise my hat in respect to Bucks FBU on Facebook who seems to be a one man army when it comes to fighting for justice for the firefighters keeping our fire stations out of the clammy hands of big business.