How Tory cuts to the fire service are killing people

Since 2010 the Tory party has been slashing away at the nation's fire service.

Between March 2010 and March 2016 the Tories axed 9,668 firefighter jobs and the cuts have still been going on for the last year, meaning it's 100% certain the number has easily exceeded 10,000 by now.

The Tories have already slashed the fire service budget by 30% and they have another 20% cut planned by 2020.

By the time of the 2015 General Election the Tories had already shut down 39 fire stations, including 10 in London that were shut down in the same week that the taxpayer owned bank RBS announced a mind-boggling £607 million in bonuses for their staff despite having lost £5.2 billion that year!

The closure of fire stations and the significant reductions in staff and vehicles at remaining stations mean that response times have been soaring all over the country, especially in rural areas. For example in Suffolk the average response time has already increased from 10 minutes to 13 minutes, and with even more Tory cuts in store it's only going to get worse.

Anyone who thinks "oh it's only three minutes, what are you complaining about?" clearly has no experience of how vital seconds can be in an emergency situation, let alone whole minutes.

People are dying because of these cuts. The government's own statistics revealed that the number of fire related deaths soared 17.4% in a single year between 2014/15 and 2015/16.

The Tory minister for policing and the fire service Brandon Lewis is blazé about the deterioration in the nation's fire safety due to the ongoing campaign of Tory cuts, in fact he says that there's room for even more reductions in fire service budgets beyond the 30% cuts they've already announced and the 20% cuts they're planning by 2020.

People are dying because of their fire service cuts and the Tories literally don't care. In fact they're intent on making the situation even worse by continuing their relentless economic assault on the nation's fire service.

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to reverse the planned Tory cuts and rebuild the fire service. This means that if you vote for a Tory government on June 8th you're voting for more people to die in house fires. You think their lives are a worthwhile sacrifice for whatever benefit you think you'd be getting from a Tory government.

Now that you've read this article and seen the evidence you just can't pretend that's not what you're doing.

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