Another right-wing Conservative councillor who is calling for firefighters and train drivers in London to be sacked is living a six-figure lifestyle on the taxpayer, Tribune can reveal. Last week, we disclosed that Tory London Fire Brigade chairman Brian Coleman was on £128,000 allowances while living in a subsidised charity housing flat.
Now it has emerged that Gareth Bacon, a London Assembly Member and ally of Mr Coleman, is receiving more than £76,000 a year in council allowances for four jobs at the London Assembly, London fire authority and on Conservative controlled Bexley Council. Only his job as chairman of the LFB’s performance management committee is unpaid as he cannot claim the £5,329 a year extra because he is an Assembly member.
His private sector job – as director for the public and non profit making sector of the Dutch-owned recruitment company MartinWardAnderson – is entirely dependent on recruiting highly paid staff to quangos, the National Health, and local councils.
His recent attacks on workers singled out Transport for London, the RMT and the FBU. He demanded that TfL take away free travel passes from their employees – while he claimed a £1,904 free travel pass to go round the capital “on business”. He has also called for “driverless trains” on the Jubilee and Northern lines. This, he says, “will break the stranglehold the militant RMT union has over the Tube to make people’s lives a misery”. He was, ironically, critical of firefighters having second jobs.
