The fire next time

In a search for information, I interrupt my brief sabbatical. The Guardian reports today:

MP George Galloway today warned fire chiefs that plans to remove a fire engine from his east London constituency would have to be carried out "over the bodies" of demonstrators.... The MP, who was expelled from the Labour party over his opposition to the war on Iraq, said the fight for the fire engine was of a piece with his anti-war stance.

"The same people killing Iraqis are taking our fire engine away, and they're doing both for the same reason," he said.

I have thought a lot about this. I am familiar with the arguments that run, respectively "the Iraq War was launched by Bush to avenge his daddy", "the Iraq War was launched by Bush for oil" and (my own assessment) "the Iraq War was launched by Saddam with his annexation of Kuwait in 1990, who then failed to adhere to the ceasefire requirements embodied in UN Security Council Resolutions 678 and 687, and therefore was liable to the rightful and necessary exercise of force by the US-led Coalition". But I cannot recall ever having heard before the argument "the Iraq War was launched by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority in order to redeploy a fire appliance to Enfield".

My regular Respect-watching correspondent, who coincidentally has a good deal of expertise in this area, advises me that the process by which each Fire and Rescue Authority draws up and publicly consults on a so-called Integrated Risk Management Plan (which was the basis of the LFEPA decision) derives from the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004. Can any of my readers point me to a single occasion on which the Hon. George Galloway MP ever spoke in the House on the FRS Bill, let alone voted against it? I think my Internet Service Provider will be able to cope with the traffic.