30/06/2017

We cannot continue to ignore our emergency services - they are true heroes

Our emergency service workers are heroes, and it's time people started saying that more.

We've all seen the images from the heartbreaking Grenfell Tower fire, of the firefighters battered, exhausted and heartbroken by what they have endured, seen and come up against. Slumped against walls, trying to catch their breath, unable to comprehend what was going on around them.

We've heard firsthand accounts of the legislations, rules and policies they threw out the window, putting their lives in danger to save others. Stories of firefighters having to write their names on their helmets so they could be easily identified if they died.

We saw images from London recently of police officers throwing themselves in front of terrorists to stop them in their tracks and save lives. Fighting the baddies off with the absolute minimum, hoping to stall them long enough until back-up came. Running into situations head-on, not knowing if they'll be going home to their families at the end of the day.

We've seen doctors, nurses and paramedics rush to the scenes of sheer catastrophe lately. The Manchester bombing, London Bridge, Grenfell Tower, Westminster Bridge - it's been too frequent. These people left their stations, left what they were doing, and rushed to the street to help people in need.

Because, when these people choose a profession in the emergency services and NHS, they do it because they care. They do it to save lives, keep people safe and look after the public. And they do all of those things on a daily basis, with barely any recognition.

They put their safety - and often their own lives - on the line to save others.

They are true heroes.

So why are they not recognised as that? Why, each day, do we glorify others? The term "hero" is banded around far too frequently, yet never deservedly.

I feel this is even more relevant, particularly given some of the atrocious events we have seen in our country recently, but even more so this week.

Earlier this week, MPs voted against Labour's attempts to reverse the long-running freeze on public sector pay.

The pay rate for workers in the public sector has been frozen at just 1 per cent rises since 2010, with the Labour Party tabling an amendment of regret to the Queen's Speech pushing for a pay rise for these heroes.

Tory MPs branded the amendment as a "political game", with one saying that voting for the Labour amendment would usher in either another General Election or a government headed by Jeremy Corbyn.

I'm sorry if I am mistaken, but I thought the amendment was to remove the cap? To allow public sector workers have a pay rise of more than a measly 1 per cent? To show some respect, gratitude and support to those people who work tirelessly every single day. To give a fair and more than deserving pay rise to workers who put their lives on the line every single day.

Tory and DUP MPs came together to vote down the motion by 323 votes to 309.

Wherever your political allegiances lie, this surely can't be defended.

After everything we have seen the past few months, all the praise that has been heaped on the emergency services and the struggling NHS for how they have coped, and this is the thanks they get. Stuck with a pathetic 1 per cent pay rise for the foreseeable future which, let's be honest, after tax/NI probably makes no difference to the wage they take home anyway.

Theresa May doing a meet and greet, and shaking everyone's hand in a line-up, is all well and good. But all this vote shows is that her and her party care more about point-scoring than they do about our emergency services. This was not a game to those workers - this is their lives being played with.

What makes it even worse - if that were possible - is that cheers were heard ringing around the Commons by Tory MPs as the amendment was defeated. They actually cheered.

I am sure - or I would hope - that this was the fact they won in general, rather than what it was they had actually done, but either way it doesn't look good.

It doesn't look good to me, so imagine how it looks to those heroic firefighters who risked everything during the blaze at Grenfell Tower - hearing people cheer at the fact you won't be getting a decent pay rise. Not just a decent pay rise, either, but a well-deserved pay rise.

It makes me so, so angry.

Wherever your political allegiances lie, surely you must be able to see that this is not right? It's not right how Theresa can't locate her magic money tree for nurses, junior doctors, firefighters... But as soon as her minority government needs propping up, she stumbles across a whole money forest and can scramble together over £1 billion for Northern Ireland.

During the recent election campaign, Theresa May was even quoted saying to a woman: "I'm being honest with you in terms of saying that we will put more money into the NHS, but there isn't a magic money tree that we can shake that suddenly provides for everything that people want."

The whole state of affairs makes me feel sick.

I don't often like to get political on my blog - preferring to talk syn free recipes, farting and Love Island - but this cannot be ignored.

We cannot continue to ignore our emergency services in this way. To do so may mean that one day, when we really, really need them, their resources have become so stretched that they're nowhere to be found.
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