LEADERS of the firefighters' union today rejected the latest pay offer that would have brought their three month-long dispute to an end.

If they had accepted the offer, every full-time fireman would have, by July 2004, been paid £25,000 a year.

This 16 percent increase was described by the local authority employers as being part of an "exceptional" inflation-busting package.

It is more than anyone else in the public sector has been offered - and it was final.

Yet, last night Andy Gilchrist, leader of the Fire Brigades Union, threw it out.

So the long-running dispute seems doomed to limp on.

The sticking point appears to be modernisation proposals.

The employers want increased flexibility so they can respond "more efficiently to local risks and needs". And they want to lift the ban on pre-arranged overtime.

But the FBU won't budge, regarding the new measures as "irrelevant and dangerous". Their original pay demand was an ambitious 40 percent increase.

A compromise must be reached.

Public sympathy is slipping, and the prospect of war with Iraq is looming on the horizon.

No one wants to see highly-skilled forces personnel back on the ageing Green Goddesses at this time.

And since nurses and teachers have adapted to strenuous modernisation measures in recent years, it appears, on the surface, churlish of the firefighters to reject this latest offer.

This paper urges both sides, at a local and national level, to "get real" and agree a way forward. Now.