Orwell should have titled it '2014'.

I could be wrong about this...

...but I thought we employed firemen to put out fires?

Nine firemen have just been severely reprimanded, one has been demoted, and all have to undergo intensive re-training.

Why? Because they failed to put out a fire? Did someone die?

No. They are in trouble because they refused to hand out leaflets at a Gay Pride march.

They objected to being ordered to do this and were reprimanded for 'disobeying orders'. I note none of those giving the orders attended this event to spend time handing out bits of paper. Then again, none of those giving the orders attend fires either.

So the Big Brothers of the fire service see fit to waste their employee's time at marches, when we are already short of firemen to cover real emergencies. The firemen's objections were brushed aside as 'prejudice', an increasingly one-sided term in our modern world, and one so overused as to have little meaning any more.

Worse, the employer's response when faced with this trivial rebellion was 'Off to Room 101 with them, for re-education.' It's called 'diversity training', which, if you look into it, involves the unquestioning acceptance that everyone is better than you are.

I urge everyone to read George Orwell's '1984'. Once hailed as a great work of fiction, it is rapidly becoming an essential manual for survival in the UK.