Ken Livingstone, the Labour Party’s candidate for Mayor of London, has called on Boris Johnson to sack his controversial fire chief Brian Coleman after he called the capital’s firefighters “thick”, condemned them as “thugs and bullies” and said: “We have to break the FBU.”
Mr Livingstone said: “Boris must get a grip and sack his confrontational fire chief if we’re to have long term solutions to the challenges facing the London Fire Brigade.”
Mr Coleman’s extraordinary remarks came in an outspoken but on the record interview with the Hampstead and Highgate Express, known as the Ham & High.
The chairman of the London Fire Authority told the paper: “The union are a thoroughly unpleasant and nasty lot. They always have been. They are not affiliated with the Labour Party and the stories about bullying and intimidation go right back to the strike in the late 1970s.
“You just have to stand up to thugs and bullies. Most of the union officials, if they had half a brain cell, they’d be dangerous. Most of them are thick, can’t string a sentence together and frankly are incoherent.”
Mr Coleman added: “We have to break the FBU, frankly, because they are not a union operating in the interests of their members – and certainly not taxpayers – as has been proved time and time again.
They’ve been a block to modernisation right along the line. Only the headbangers – Jeremy Corbyn, John Cryer and, surprisingly, the very nice Kate Hoey – belong to the FBU support group in Parliament.”
Mr Coleman also dismissed suggestions that Mr Johnson does not wholeheartedly back his confrontational tactics. He said: “There is not a tissue paper between Boris and I.”
Firefighters were not surprised by what Mr Coleman had to say – they know what he says about them in private – but they were amazed that he judged it appropriate to go on the record with his remarks.
Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said: “I have been afraid, as his remarks became wilder, that Mr Coleman was starting to lose the plot.
“It appears he has now lost it – I hope temporarily. If we all crouch in our dugouts screaming ‘thick’ and ‘thug’ and ‘incoherent’ and ‘break the union’ at each other, no progress will be made.
