Would the public rather pay the firefighters and other public service workers a decent wage or would they rather spend their hard-earned cash on funding a war in Iraq to keep the Blair and Bush administration happy?So long, Tony, it was nice voting for you.. What can be madder than this? Britain is donating £70m a year in the form of international aid to a southern African country on the verge of starvation while at the same time it is stripping it of its most precious resource – skilled nurses. So almost a third of the country’s output is being hoovered up by the National Health Service That is not just mad. It is immoral.Of course, the poor must seek their fortune where they can.

There is a global shortage of nurses and the UK is not the only rich country raiding the developing world to shore up its tottering health system. On Monday, Tony Blair repeated his determination to see job cuts, a downsized night shift and more overtime to fill in for lost jobs. It is insulting to suggest that the FBU is manipulating them and orchestrating this dispute for some sinister political motive.Nobody likes to go on strike. Well, so they should! That’s why we voted Tony Blair in in the first place.The Government does not seem to have realised that it is firefighters and emergency fire control operators who started this campaign with an 87 per cent yes vote for strike action. The Government must make a decision – do we or do we not want to live in a society that values public service?Tony Blair says that if we ask for a pay rise the nurses, the teachers and other public-sector workers will come knocking at No 11 for more money. But this will cost around £18m, and will mean fewer firefighters on duty. This not only threatens safety, it also undermines equality, which is one of the Government’s declared objectives for the fire service.Our productivity has been rising faster than the rest of the economy for two decades, according to employers’ evidence to the Bain report.

Tony Blair said today that we were asking for a blank cheque with no costing and a rise that will bring direct economic consequences. But the FBU has provided the costing, and it shows how our wage demand would be self-financing and highly beneficial to the economy in the long-term.Again, Blair talks about modernisation, again he means cuts, and cuts are exactly what the overstretched service doesn’t need. Would the public prefer a trained paramedic or five firefighters with cutting equipment to turn up if their loved one was clutching their chest? Besides, it would take four to five years to train as a qualified paramedic.The Government says it wants full-time and part-time firefighters to work together, and says we oppose this But we already have mixed crewing It wants to boost overtime. They say we must train to be paramedics, but we already have excellent first-aid training. Many fire engines across the country already carry defibrilators.The Government, in my eyes, wants to make further cuts in the health service, and relishes the idea of sending fire engines instead of ambulances. In their eyes modernisation means fewer jobs, longer hours, and fewer fire engines. We have modernised, we are modernising and we will continue to modernise.