The Conservative Chair of the London Fire and Rescue Authority announced this week that fortnightly waste collections are a fire risk. The reason, he tells us, is that they attract arson attacks.
Meanwhile I have received a number of hostile letters because I suggested in a council meeting that there was no retail crisis at the north end of St Peter’s Street in St Albans. That, far from there being a blight of empty shops, somehow caused by parking charges which rose only modestly last April, footfall is in fact increasing and void tenancies are decreasing. And anyway St Albans is doing better than most of the country on this score.
Elsewhere in the district no fewer than 800 people have backed a Facebook protest at the county council’s plans to remove the skateboard park which has long been a feature of the local youth centre. There are no such plans.
And finally the district council has been lambasted for months over its plans to decrease the amount of swimming capacity at the local leisure centre. In fact it plans to increase the capacity.
What do all these have in common? The fact that so many people – politicians and non-politicians – will campaign contrafactually.
We all, of course, talk up our cause. In the spirit of Dr Pangloss, we say the Liberal Democrats will make the best possible government in the best of all possible worlds. The reality is that we know that some of our policies are not as good as they could be and that even a Lib Dem government is bound to contain the odd duffer.
But cheering on your side is fair game and we can undertand when our opponents do it too, even if they have elected Ed Miliband as Party Leader (Dannii not Kylie, as one Labour activist said rather too audibly).
But that is different from making stuff up or failing to check facts. If it’s not true that fortnightly collections will cause arson don’t say it. Say: ‘I don’t like fortnightly collections.’
If a pressure group is basing its campaigns on wrong information say so, even if it is expedient to be on their side. In the long run they will applaud you for your leadership, even for your wisdom.
So does that mean we should always believe what we are told by the council? Of course, not. Scepticism is healthy, just as cynicism is not. I won’t be backing the petitioners against the Tory county council’s non existent plans to deprive young people of their facility. But I will be looking for real reasons to protest against county hall.
I happen to know that the county council intends to move the excellent music recording facility to a neighbouring town and so take it out of reach of local young people. This happens to be true. No-one is campaigning on it. But I think I will.
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8 Comments
Why do they think (or say) fortnightly collections are an arson risk? Either people set fire to rubbish or they do not and whether it’s collected daily or weekly or fortnightly doesn’t change that? Or have I missed something?
Tony Greaves
I suppose a fortnight’s worth of rubbish makes a bigger fire.
I wish people campaigning against mobile phone masts would just say ‘they look ugly’ instead of on spurious health issues.
In certain respects this is quite a strange post, you start with talk about the London Fire Authority and fortnightly waste collection, you then talk about various other bits, then comes:
“But that is different from making stuff up or failing to check facts. If it’s not true that fortnightly collections will cause arson don’t say it. Say: ‘I don’t like fortnightly collections.’”
But there is nothing in between the 2 that discusses evidence for or against? So are we to assume that you researched this and found that the number of arson attacks on rubbish in London hadn’t increased?
Baroness Warsi is someone who needs to get to know her (or any) facts… her interview today was a text-book case of why you shouldn’t mouth off without any facts. It was also (from a fully paid up member of LieBore, or whatever it is you witty ConDems call us) very, very funny indeed. And cringeworthy.
http://etonmess.blogspot.com/2010/10/baronss-warsi-outed-as-labour-mole.html
Why do they think (or say) fortnightly collections are an arson risk?
Because people will happily accept bad arguments that lead to conclusions they want to believe. See also: theology.
Gosh Mike Hartley.
1) Are you being ironic for sneering at us for supposedly calling Labour “Lie-bour” (I’ve never heard any Lib Dem colleagues use this, incidentally) before calling us “ConDems”? BTW I was at the Labour Party Conference last week where I was presented with a “Fib Dems Lying Here” yellow diamond poster at the Manchester Labour Party stand in the main hall…
2) I don’t like every Lib Dem politician, why should I automatically like Baroness Warsi, whose comments are often as offensive as they are inane? During the Nick Griffin Question Time appearance, I was actually quite torn as to when to throw pillows at the telly.
@Iain Coleman
“Because people will happily accept bad arguments that lead to conclusions they want to believe. See also”
Whilst I can’t talk for London specifically, I do know that the Fire Service have problems with arson in piles of litter. Even organisations like the Arson Prevention Bureau recommend that “Bins should be stored away from buildings.” A simple search on the web for “UK litter arson” can bring up items such as the one from Kent Police, where they have issued newsletters warning people of increases in litter arson and provides advice such as “Only put your rubbish out on the collection day”.
So if litter is a fire risk because it can attract arson attacks, then surely the risk to life and property increases if the available combustible material is greater?
Unfortunately, Chris White put forward this OP without giving any clue as to what has actually been done to mitigate the risk in London (which is why I assume he thinks the Chair of LFA was wrong) – so if “checking your facts first” is rule one, I would say that rule 2 should be “At least give an outline of what those facts are prior to rubbishing statements from other people”.
I’ll be interested to see what Chris comes back with.