Outrage in Bradford as Signwriter is Sacked over Clerical Error in Political Correctness Fiasco

Vernon Hopkins of Bradford is suing his former employers, Bradford City Council, for what he calls "a complete failure of political correctness!" after being sacked after road signs that were supposed to have Urdu translations in fact were written in Arabic. Local conservative councillor Iain Perkins-Higgson says his party will stand with Hopkins:

"There was outrage that those unable to read British road signs should even be allowed behind the wheel when they threw our council tax behind this travesty," he said, "and now, because these people don't actually know the difference between Urdic and Arabic they're seeking to make a scapegoat of someone without the wherewithal to defend himself! Typical PC madness as usual from this leftist shower!"

Hopkins, who has been employed by the council's Signage and Safety department since 1979 was tasked last year with the job of adding Urdu translations to some of the area's road signs.

"They told me that there were folk crashing ‘cause they couldn't read English and we needled to add Urdu. I thought they were talking about a barbers shop at first. I don't even know where Urdustan is!" he told us, still visibly upset, “I told 'em; I said I got two GCEs and a City & Guilds, I can't write in foreign!"

Under political pressure from the town's Asian community and Bradford's Grand Mufti the council pushed to get the signs completed and, according to Hopkins, they employed an outside translation service and sent the sign writer several prints of the text they wanted him to add.

"I painted their curly whirly spaghetti language onto the sign as they asked," Insists Hopkins, “I ain't done nothing wrong!"

Despite this Hopkins has found himself out of a job due to the public outcry around the signs. A victim, he says, of the loony left political machine.The council insist otherwise. Alan Bunger, Labour council leader, told us that Hopkins was fired for incompetence.

"Nobody would ever describe Hopkins as bright,” he explained,” and his team have been complaining that Hopkins is a knuckle dragging bigot for years. We have tolerated him because he seemed reasonably competent but mistaking Arabic for Urdu has cost us a fortune so we can't simply pretend anymore that Hopkins is competent because people spend a lot of time reading his work."

A spokesman for the Signwriter And Calligraphic Union said it was the council's duty to check that the correct text was being copied and to ensure it wasn't rubbish before allowing it out into public. But as Hopkins said: "Foreign is bloody foreign! It's all the ruddy same to me! I just do what I'm told to.

With the issue looking set to go to a tribunal we will have to wait to see who is ultimately blamed. Yet the council continue to insist that Hopkins had the Urdu text but still ended up writing in Arabic."