It transpires that Glasgow had 6 high-reach fire engines until 2023, when SNP government cuts to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service reduced that number to 2. Both of which were out of action due to maintenance on Sunday when the city actually needed them. One had to be driven *from*Edinburgh*.
While I’m ever-keen to put the boot in to the SNP whenever possible, it seems to me this country (by which I mean the entire UK) has slipped into a dark place where we are unable to think strategically. We know the price of everything and the value of nothing, and that’s a potentially fatal flaw when it comes to equipment you hope you’ll never need but has to be there and in working order if the day comes you do actually need it. On Sunday in Glasgow its specialist fire engines in a Victorian city known for buildings going on fire. Elsewhere, it’s a Royal Navy that’s barely able to sail anything anywhere because ships weren’t getting built in anything like the right numbers for more than 30 years on account of the fact that a war wasn’t actually happening right now.
Herald report on fire engines (lack of):
https://archive.ph/hExV6