The Fire Brigades Union and employers’ representatives agreed to a deal on a 16 per cent pay rise, in the early hours of the morning on which an eight-day strike was to begin. But the office of Mr John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, said nothing could be done till 9 a.m., and in any
Within an hour of returning to the Commons after a sabbatical tour of ex-British South Asia I find myself plunged into the firefighters’ strike. The Blairites have long been envious of the glass-jawed opponents who queued up to be walloped by Mrs Thatcher. But during Monday’s Downing Street press conference the Prime Minister modestly disavowed
The origins of government mishandling of the firefighters’ strike are to be found in the immediate aftermath of the general election in June last year, when Tony Blair failed to sack John Prescott. The Deputy Prime Minister had proved a strikingly incompetent transport secretary during the 1997-2001 Parliament. Commuters are suffering the consequences today. Prescott
Of the many personal mishaps to have afflicted ministers in the last Conservative government, few, ultimately, can have proved as damaging as the revelation that Norman Lamont had exceeded the credit limit on his Access card. No matter that most credit-card holders commit this oversight at some point, nor that the cheap cigarettes and fizz
