| Friday, November 15, 2002 |
 | The firefighters are a bit screwed, really. The public goodwill depends on their perception as thoroughly decent blokes. However, to maintain this, they have to keep breaking their own strike to help out at fires. Thus, rather than working for 21K a year, they are working for free.
Conversely, if people start dying, public goodwill is going to abrade fairly quickly, particularly if that deadly terrorist strike does in fact hit London. But if casualty rates remain low, it makes it look as if we can all get on perfectly well without firefighters, thanks, and the strike is thus etiolated.
There's only one solution I can see. The firefighters should continue to break their strike, but only for the salvation of nice people. Local lads, octogenarian veterans, girls next door, all these they strive to preserve while leaving the venal and unpleasant to perish in the blaze. So, Jimmy Stewart yes, Lionel Barrymore no, basically. The resulting local heroism would occur against a backdrop of econoimic crisis as those who held the purse-strings of the country are immolated one by one. How could it go wrong? The governnment, venal and unpleasant pretty much to a man, would have to back down, really. And everyone is happy. Except the government, the other public sector workers, and Jimmy Stewart, who will probably be a bit pissed off at losing his 24-hour coverage.
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