Labour is the only friend this pro-EU prime minister still has

David Cameron is under fire from the press and Tory MPs. It would become him to act more courteously to the pro-Europeans on the other side of the house

The cuts are getting closer to home. Last weekend, an 86-year-old near neighbour died in a house fire when he might have been rescued had the fire brigade not been suffering from a programme of cutbacks.

One can never be sure in such cases, but the London secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, Paul Embery, pointed out the fire engines were significantly later on the scene than they should have been. Thanks to the cuts to local authority budgets which are an integral feature of George Osborne's austerity policy, and reductions in the fire service being energetically pursued by the mayor of London, the borough of Islington has reportedly lost 60% of its fire cover in the past three years. The Islington Tribune - a newspaper David Cameron says he regularly subscribes to - reports that this leaves "just two engines for a borough with a population of more than 200,000".

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