The Fire Brigades Union have released a nice inflammatory poster for bonfire week. In an uncharacteristic bout of originality, they have rounded on “the cuts”. Unsurprisingly, their rhetoric is nothing more than a load of hot air:

“The stark reality is that these cuts will kill people. Fire service or funeral service? Let your MP know which you’d prefer.”

Only that isn’t the stark reality at all. Government statistics show that fire-related deaths have been on a downward trend for three decades and now stand at their lowest level since the 1950s. In the last ten years alone the number of fire-related incidents in England halved. What’s more, fire and rescue authorities have been asked to find savings of only 2.2% in 2011-12 and just 0.5% in 2012-13.

Union scaremongering? Whatever next…