Almost everyone agrees firefighters are brave, skilled people who should be paid more than the £22,000 a year they get now.

But the bitter battle with employers and the Government has produced some interesting facts and figures. Some of them do not help the strikers' case.

One of them is that the Royal Naval personnel who are taking their place are often being paid a lot less.

Another is that £22,000 sounds like good money to many people, especially in low-pay Brighton and Hove, which is why there are 40 applicants for every firefighter's job.

Fire Brigades Union boss Andy Gilchrist has led his members into a struggle from which it will be difficult to escape with dignity and a lot of cash.

While firefighters may sincerely believe a 40 per cent rise is merited, there is no way in which the Government could have accepted it without blowing a gaping hole in its financial policies.

Some kind of fudge and compromise is necessary involving a deal stretching over several years with modernisation of working practices part of the settlement. If that means removing some posts without compromising safety rather than redundancies, this may be a way of finding some of the cash.

The Government has not handled this dispute well either. It has been hard to know until recently who has been in charge or what policy was being followed.

All sides must get round a table again sooner rather than later. These strikes are futile and they could be dangerous.