FIREFIGHTERS STRIKE

As the firefighters strike continues with no resolution in sight, the war of words has hit dangerously inflammatory proportions. Scottish Parliamentary Minister Dr Richard Simpson has been forced to resign over comments made in public in which he branded the firefighters as "fascist bastards, the kind who supported Mussolini".

After initially denying that he had made the comments at all, Dr Simpson (faced with the inconvenient fact that there had been several witnesses) later changed his story and claimed that he simply "could not recall" making them, before finally coming up with the political excuse to end all political excuses. Well, he's a psychologist after all - changing minds is what he's good at.

In a radio interview he claimed that "It was not me that made the original remark. I was quoting somebody else. It was a member of the public who made that remark and I was only saying that this sort of remark had occurred."

Yeah, sure. Blame the electorate. Troublemaking communist bastards, the kind who supported Stalin, every last one of them.