Firefighters were forced into a defensive position today after important and hardworking public officials started to show the strain of the remorseless pressure from public sector workers heckling for a pay rise.

First Michael Gove and now Boris Johnson have issued calls for the 1% pay cap on public sector workers to be dropped.

An aide to the loveable Gove had this to say,

“No one knows how hard Mickie works. He’s really tireless. You know he has to hire hotel staff to babysit his child? That’s how hard. It’s not very fair.”

It seems the plight of these poor MPs has not been helped by a credulous public throwing support behind scrapping the pay cap.

An aide to Boris phoned the Herald with this statement,

“I know it’s not satire unless you are criticising the Conservatives. We all know there is nothing funny about Jeremy Corbyn. But surely he deserves a bit of stick for whipping the public into a blind hysteria over greedy nurses digging about the shelves of food banks?”

It is thought Ms May might cave later today and issue a statement giving ground, just to get some thinking time while she continues to cross out answers to the question ‘What is Brexit?’

“This has come out of nowhere.” Mr Gove’s aide added.

“Firefighters get a little bit of publicity just for doing their job and they use it to strong arm the government into a policy that wasn’t in the election manifesto.

Mind you, nothing much that we’re doing was in our manifesto. But that’s not really the point, is it?”