Our public services are not and never will be safe in Con-Dem hands. It's not just that they want to flog everything that isn't nailed down and cut everything that doesn't turn a profit for their City backers - although those are both true.

It's also that being a bunch of narrow-minded, ignorant toffs who went straight from public school to Oxbridge to PR to politics without ever dipping a toe into the real world, they have literally no notion of what it takes to teach a classroom full of kids, nurse a ward full of patients or tackle a blaze in a crowded tower block.

And they don't care, either. To them our public servants are convenient scapegoats for their own economic failures, fit for nothing more than to be lied about and slandered, painted as workshy and money-grabbing.

Which is why we are currently witnessing the frankly crazy sight of the coalition trying to force firefighters to work to 60 for their pensions.

A simple question for ministers: "Do you have any idea what firefighters actually do?"

Are the Con-Dems even aware that fire crews need to be able to climb ladders, to haul heavy hoses, to carry unconscious victims out of burning buildings?

If the answer is Yes, then what on earth do ministers think they are doing by placing the lives of both firefighters and the public at such terrible risk?

And if the answer is No, then what on earth do ministers think they are doing by meddling so damagingly in something they don't understand?

Either way this attack on the fire service must be stopped. It is a stupid, dangerous blunder which will kill people.

If - or more likely when - Fire Brigades Union members do strike against these plans, expect the usual shameful right-wing lies about them recklessly putting the public at risk.

But make no mistake. It is the Tories and the Lib Dems who will have blood on their hands if these plans are not blocked.

Solidarity in Wigan

The blinkered and hateful Tory worldview simply can't explain why Wigan delivered such a stirring show of support for striking Hovis bakery workers - but we can.

It's about pride, dignity and solidarity.

The dignity of good, useful work. Pride in doing that work well.

Solidarity with your comrades, friends and neighbours.

Pride in your town, your community and your class - and a recognition that we are, to borrow the Tories' pet phrase, all in it together.

We all benefit when workers have good, well-paid, secure jobs, and we all suffer when wages are cut and workers are put onto insecure, unpredictable zero-hours contracts.

And so we all need to fight back as a community and as a class when we are threatened.

The miners and the steelworkers and the shipbuilders knew that, which is why Margaret Thatcher fought tooth and nail to crush their industries and their communities.

But she couldn't crush their spirit. And Saturday's display in Wigan proves that this spirit is alive and well despite three decades of politics ruled by selfishness and greed.