Facing up to a long, bitter fight

The firefighters' leader, Andy Gilchrist, will wake today with a degree of satisfaction in John Prescott's discomfiture. The Deputy Prime Minister will be taking considerable flak in today's newspapers for his inability to arrive at a decision over a draft deal struck by the Fire Brigades Union and employers early yesterday.

Mr Prescott needed Tony Blair and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, to pronounce on the proposals. The Prime Minister harbours a deep antipathy to unions but might just have been tempted to finesse a settlement. Arguably, the Chancellor's refusal to open the Treasury's coffers dealt the final blow to the proposals.

Mr Prescott's embarrassment will be a short-lived victory. Mr Gilchrist must now decide how he can snatch a compromise from the jaws of defeat while preparing his members for a long, bitter battle.

He is facing a Government with Thatcherite pretensions which has never experienced the kind of union conflict the Conservative governments of the Eighties faced and overcame. The fuel protest of 2000, which led Britain to the brink of economic disaster, was the only serious industrial crisis with which New Labour has had to deal. In the event, the Chancellor was forced to compromise on fuel duty.

This time he will be determined not to give an inch. The Government is not prepared to grant more to the fire service now, to save money in the long term. Mr Gilchrist needs to arrange talks with Mr Brown. The Chancellor, who boasts of his deep roots in the movement, holds the veto and he is the man the FBU needs to impress.

At the same time, the firefighters' leader is in urgent need of support from left-wing colleagues at the head of other unions. The FBU needs industrial mayhem on a grand scale.

Put bluntly, the FBU requires the head of the RMT union, Bob Crow, to bring London Underground to a halt; Mick Rix, leader of the train drivers' union, to persuade his members the Channel tunnel link is unsafe, and Derek Simpson, leader of Amicus-AEEU, to point at the danger of certain industrial processes without fire cover. Probably, only wide-spread unrest would force the Government to compromise.

Far worse, only a major disaster, with firefighters leaving the picket line to save lives, might soften the Chancellor's hard line.