From my journal, 16th February 2015
 
On Sunday, for the first time I felt that I could actually walk away from the civil service tomorrow. My pension wouldn't be great but we'd survive. And with that thought, I felt a surge of sheer joy and release. I honestly wouldn't miss anything about it at all, other than lunch time chats with G but I can always meet him outside work. But if I walk away, then, literally, not metaphorically, people will continue to die.
 
Over the weekend, I also thought about the meeting we had with Trace last week and realised that what she/Swinson are proposing - putting additional and unnecessary work through British Standards - is potentially catastrophic. For one, it sets a dangerous precedent, because the villains will almost certainly then insist that we put all work through BSI, which will please Sir Ken for a start, given his place on the steering board at BSI. Giving them all the work will allow them to spin it out, water it down and generally shape the regs to their particular needs which, let's face it, don't have more than a passing resemblance to what's sometimes called by old-fashioned civil servants the public interest.
 
So it was I decided to meet one of the lawyers first thing today, on the basis if I can't get my lot to do the right thing, maybe the law can. And M confirmed that a) there is no legal requirement for BIS to run anything past BSI, and b) we need to put the match right asap, since, as the lawyers have told us before, there are big potential lawsuits looming if we don't.
 
Back at my desk was an email from Barbara, first asking me how I was (!), although I suspect this was mostly for the record rather than genuine concern. Mind you, while I was half-way through replying she actually made the physical trip to my desk where she fixed me with her 10" close 'genuine' stare, I guess to show she really did want to know (freaked out and wishing I wasn't backed up against the edge of my desk, B, as it happens). She then went on to imply that she was on message - apparently unaware that none of us have any idea what the message is any longer; but I think she meant to get the new test in by April 2016 to please the Ministers and at least lower the lawyers' blood pressure a few degrees. Then again, I don't trust her.
 
After that, I wrote to Oliver Letwin who'd asked for an update. I met him at No 9 Downing Street last year, along with three other officials; and he'd had shown concern about all the cancers that might be arising from FRs in our sofas. I'd told him that our new test would hugely reduce FRs and he'd been pleased to hear that. Is he different to other Tory Ministers, in that he wants to put public health before profit? I guess we'll see. [On 5 July 2017, George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian about how 'The Red Tape Initiative', including Letwin, met on the day Grenfell Tower blazed, to discuss how they make further cuts to safety legislation. So maybe not . . . ]
 
Oh, and today the Minister received a letter from our old friend and FR-lover, Paul Fuller, ex-President of CFOA, who was at the round table meeting, spouting nonsense. He'd copied in others like his old FR-loving mate, Dave Sibert, of the FBU. Nice to see the two firefighter unions coming together to . . . um, make sure our sofas remain flammable. The tactics in the letter are clear and predictable: they now want to run the new match test into the 'full review' of the FFRs which of course needs to go through BSI, thereby of course creating delays that can go on for as long as they want them to. Incredibly, he claimed to know nothing about the full review, which took place largely between 2011-12, even though his Presidential predecessor attended loads of meetings, along with Mr Sibert.
 
So, why do Fuller, Sibert, Sir Ken, etc, want to delay changes that will make the public safe and protect their own firefighters from toxic smoke which causes cancers and other illnesses? Steve and I discussed this the other day, and we think at one level it's as simple as they like to be part of 'The Boys' Club' - to get access to the top (round or otherwise) table; to own union credit cards; to attend lots of charity dinners; to feel important; to mix with MPs and other 'respectable' types - to feel they're 'steering the ship', 'keeping a firm hand on the tiller', 'enjoying well-earned perks'; lining themselves up for honours and more epaulets on their shoulders. While at the same time remaining pig-ignorant of the damage they're causing to the public (either because they actually are pig-ignorant or, in one case at least, choose to be when it suits).
 
Me? Well, let's just say I got thrown out of the boy scouts for starting a revolution at summer camp.
 

From my journal, February 2015, after the Minister's round table meeting.
 
Let's just say I could have written the meeting note before the meeting. All the whingers sensed their chance and reverted big time to the old (completely unfounded) complaints:
 

• Not enough evidence
• We want a full review
• Should go through British Standards

 
John - the only one from BEIS with permission to speak - said absolutely nothing to any of the whinging which was backed up but not one piece of evidence, just a lot of porky pieing. John apparently having forgotten that evidence is what the Minister had asked for. Not that she was exactly threatening Sherlock Holmes' reputation in her examination of the veracity of what was put to her.
 
A couple of days after the round table, John and Barbara held a 'wash-up' ('bury the facts') meeting with each other, me excluded, and apparently decided that everything was just dandy. Meaning that their backsides are in no need of protecting, for the moment at least. I emailed them to say we need to give the Minister the counter-arguments to the whingers, especially in light of her saying : "Powerful argument" to David King's lies that were prefaced, amazingly, by him saying, "Leaving aside the evidence . . . ". But Barbara replied to say that the Minister was 'shrewd' and would have seen through them, having forgotten, apparently, that only a couple of months ago she was claiming that the Minister was not bright enough to understand the various factors around the new test. I guess one's IQ is directly proportional to the needs of whoever is assessing it.
 
Yesterday, we received a summons to go see Tracy [Jo Swinson's assistant] at 4.15. John was off somewhere, giving a talk, which may or may not be why Tracy chose that time (Steve and I are convinced she's been brainwashed by John and is in cohoots). Barbara and I go up to find Tracy is in with the Minister . . . and we wait . . . and we wait.  Around five o'clock, we leave the waiting room to find Tracy back at her desk having apparently forgotten about us. More power games, no doubt.
 
We go to a meeting room with her and she gives us what to me was totally predictable feed-back from the Minister. Swinson was 'very pleased' with the meeting and now wants:
 
1)   British Standards to do their 12-month 'fast track' thing (what was that about her shrewdly seeing through the nonsense, B?).
 
2)   Get more evidence - unspecified of course.
 
3)   Get on with the full review.
 
I try to inject some sanity, in amongst Barbara's simpering agreement. But all I get from Tracy is dagger eyes and little exasperated sighs, as if I've just shat in her handbag. There are several forms of self-brainwashing; she's adopted the superior stance, choosing to see the objector as someone who just doesn't 'get it', without actually ever describing what constitutes 'it' but which I believe is simply 'do not stand in the way of my career path'.
 
I try: " We already have all the evidence!" and "British Standards is not the correct process!" and "British Standards are going to spend 12 months coming up with a formula we already have!" [Actually, I was wrong about this: in the event, they didn't bother coming up with anything at all.] But all this produces is rolling eyes and condescending sneers in young Trace.
 
Afterwards, B and I have quite a long conversation. I really do believe she suffers/benefits from a kind of madness that is to do with compartmentalising her brain. Hence, when I say, "Barbara - it's really embarrassing to ask British Standards to spend 12 months on a foam formula that isn't needed and already exists," she says, "We can get some people on to the BS committee who will understand that this is what the Minister wants." Then chooses simply not to hear me reply: "a) it's not our committee, and b) even if it was, you can't ask professional people to spend time and money doing something so pointless." [In this I was proved right when later in the year, after John and Barbara had persuaded British Standards to hold a committee meeting, BS decided in the event to disown the meeting and not even publish a meeting note (unprecedented, I understand) on the grounds that their senior management caught on and ruled that BS has no place in deciding government policy.]
 
She also told me a 'story' that she said she told Steve too. (Incidentally, another of her delusions is that she's taken to mis-quoting Steve to me in order to back-up her arguments, which tells me that she has no concept of what a real working relationship is like, i.e. I know she's misquoting partly because I know what Steve would and wouldn't say on the new match test and partly because he told me anyway.) Her story is about how brilliant her bothers and sisters were but in different ways (she fixed me with a 'significant' stare at this point and, yes, a Tsunami of irony was heading our way) - Steve and I might be good at explaining our perception of things, she said - at which point I irritated her by interrupting, saying it's not about our perception; it's about evidence and proven scientific reasoning. And before she could get back to her 'story', I turned the screw by using the 'E' word, pointing out that at the Experts meeting she'd called, she had every expert tell her the current test fails and the new one will succeed. What she said to that was truly extraordinary:
 
"You were studying Phil Reynolds closely - " (Which was not actually true - again, she was exaggerating something I'd said, which was that I'd noticed his floundering reaction when Steve asked the question, "Does everyone agree that the new test is sound?") - "so you didn't hear me say that I didn't. No one heard me say that I didn't understand it." To which I could only reply, "But you're not an expert, Barbara." To which she said: "They didn't explain it to me. I needed more evidence."
 
I really don't know where to begin in unpicking this amazingly ego-centric 'reasoning' but what in effect I think she's really saying is:
 
"I didn't want to listen to the unanimous verdict of the experts that I'd invited, and therefore didn't go to the Minister and tell her we were good to go, which in turn would have brought in the changes that would secure the Department's biggest Red Tape challenge project, save industry lots of money and, most important of all, would have stopped people dying horrible deaths - because I decided that I didn't understand them."
 
Today, Barbara is still all happy-clappy, because she thinks she sees a way out of the corner she's painted herself into. She actually said to me, "You still have the project," the only problem there being that she and John caved into pressure from the villains in denial of our fully-evidenced new test. Which means only two things:
 
1)   They'll cave in in future, too.
 
2)   The villains will be even bolder next time.
 
She's now agreeing to the Minister's request, that we get the new test in by April 2016 but I'm thinking that there are now a lot of difficult battles to face before that ever happens [and to date, it still hasn't], and we have a totally dysfunctional team to face them with.
 
I could walk away and may even get a promotion at another job (something Barbara has hinted at) but the problem I have is that these are ghastly, immoral people and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. As Steve said to me the other day: integrity is everything. Without it, well, you end up as a Barbara, John or Tracy with all your energy spent on protecting your career and pension, hoping that your brain remains compartmentalised for the rest of your days so you never have to feel any guilt at the suffering caused by your actions, or in the case of John happily counting your loot from a grateful chemical industry.
 
here to edit.

February 2015

Attached here is the official note, with my comments, of a 'round table' meeting held by Jo Swinson, the BIS Minister for the Furniture Regulations, and a selection of stakeholders. The official reason for the meeting was that Swinson wanted to hear a range of stakeholders' views before deciding on the fate of the proposed new match test. However, she already knew every view going; probably, the real reason for the meeting was that she didn't want to leave government (as she almost certainly would in a few months time, after the election) with such important safety measures unresolved.

The result of this meeting was that Swinson instructed BIS officials to a) commission British Standards to produce a new test foam, then b) implement the new match test in April 2016. The British Standards work was put strongly to her by stakeholders at this meeting. However, that work was never done and the match test remains unimplemented.

I think the reasons for this should become rather obvious when reading the actual words of those present at the meeting. 

Elsewhere on this blog I report that I've challenged some of those present at the round table meeting to explain why they advocated delays to the match test for extra work to be done but never actually did it. No reply so far!

The meeting started with Toni Eldridge of Trading Standards giving a talk on the current and new match tests (as commissioned to do so by BIS), explaining in effect that the current test is failing in most cases, and that the new test will put right the problems involved. You may then wonder why almost everyone who subsequently spoke completely ignored what she'd said. Well, it might help to explain why if you take into account that the three massive industries most involved were (and are) currently gaining from the failed current test and would lose considerably from the new one, i.e. -

 - The flame retardant industry (and its associated friends) would lose up to 50% of profits from products in cover fabrics overnight and possibly the whole lot very soon after.

 - The chemical treatment industry would be heavily criticised in the short term when the introduction of the new test confirmed the erratic nature of the current test plus its capacity to allow the undertreatment scam to profit producers at the risk of the general public. In the long term, they would possibly lose all their business too, since the new test allows for the development of barrier technologies that require no chemical treatment.

 - The furniture industry, mainly because the introduction of the new test would expose the fact that they have been selling flammable, unsafe products to consumers for decades and knowingly since at least August 2014 - exacerbated, of course, by the fact that they had either not embraced the new test fully (probably due to the same fear) or, as in the case of at least one major retailer (present at this meeting), had actively opposed it.