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Matt Wrack: How to rebuild the fire and rescue service
The FBU general secretary, currently running for another term, speaks to Ben Chacko about what's needed to reverse 14 years of cuts – and decades of neoliberal deregulation
Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, speaks to the media, next to the Grenfell Memorial Wall in west London

MATT WRACK is running for re-election as general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. First elected in 2005, when Tony Blair was PM, he’s now on his eighth prime minister and recently completed a year as president of the TUC. But he’s still up for the fight.

“There’s still a lot to do,” he tells the Morning Star as ballots begin to land on firefighters’ doormats. “We’ve been through some tough times under all those prime ministers, we’ve come through it in one piece, and we have plans to try to rebuild the fire service, make Labour deliver on workers’ rights and repeal anti-union legislation. I think I’m the best person to see that through.”

Fourteen years of Tory cuts have hit the fire and rescue service hard. Response times are at their highest in 30 years. There are 12,000 fewer firefighters than in 2010 — a decline of a fifth.

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