BRITAIN: The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has warned striking firemen they cannot win their pay dispute and insisted there would be no wave of political strikes returning Britain to the infamous 1978 "winter of discontent", writes Frank Millar, London Editor
Stung by charges of indecision and inconsistency, Mr Blair effectively took personal charge of his government's response to the growing industrial relations crisis as the death toll rose to 12 on the fourth day of the Fire Brigade Union's (FBU) eight-day stoppage.
Following his hastily-arranged televised press conference ,the Conservatives forced Mr Blair to make an emergency statement in the Commons, during which he repeated his tough line that victory for the striking FBU members would be a defeat for the country as a whole.
Echoing Chancellor Gordon Brown's charge that an inflation-busting deal would have dire consequences for the stability of the British economy, Mr Blair stressed it would also have huge implications across the whole of the public sector. Mr Blair said the government could not sign "a blank cheque" for an uncosted 16 per cent deal of the kind concluded by the union and the employers last Friday.
Any rise above the 4 per cent which is currently on offer would have to paid for through modernisation of the firefighters' working practices.
Describing the FBU's demands as "unreasonable" and unfair to other workers, such as nurses, teachers, police officers and soldiers - some of whom were manning the fire appliances during the FBU strike - Mr Blair declared: "This is a strike they can't win. It would not be a defeat for the government, it would be a defeat for the country."
Mr Blair won strong backing for that stance from both the CBI and the Institute of Directors, who described the firemen's dispute as "indisputably a direct challenge to the government's authority by a trade union."
Mr Blair also had the grudging support of the Conservatives, who had earlier sought to make political capital out of seemingly contradictory signals emanating from the Chancellor and the deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott.
However the FBU general secretary, Mr Andy Gilchrist, said Mr Blair's intervention showed the government was "out of touch" with public feeling on the issue.
Amid mounting fears that the dispute would now run up to Christmas, Mr Gilchrist said ministers in the next few days must make a vital decision.
"Do we or do we not want to live in a society which places a real value on public service?" Mr Blair dismissed fears of a "winter of discontent" of the kind which doomed the last Labour government in 1979, saying there would be no wave of winter strikes because this one would be seen to fail.
However the government will come under fresh pressure this morning with strike action by teachers predicted to close as many as 1,500 of London's 2,200 primary and secondary schools, while millions of commuters again suffer disruption and delays caused by the closure of some 20 deep-tunnelled Tube stations as a result of the FBU action.