A BITTER war of words has this week broken out between Bridgwater's MP and the chief executive of Somerset County Council - including accusations that one has insulted the memory of people who died in the Holocaust.

Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has criticised the Liberal Democrat-run council on a number of occasions in recent years, notably with regard to highways and spending issues.

Further bad blood developed last year when Mr Liddell-Grainger vocally opposed the council's plans to create a unitary authority to govern Somerset.

And now Mr Liddell-Grainger and the council's chief executive Alan Jones are at loggerheads once again.

Last week, the Mercury revealed how an Audit Commission report had awarded the council its maximum rating of four stars following a recent inspection, and Mr Jones highlighted that fact to council employees in a recent newsletter.

But in a thinly-veiled swipe at critics, he added: "I emphasise these points because there are a few unscrupulous people who insist on slagging us off.

"In the light of this assessment they now join the ranks of those who believe that the Earth is flat, that the holocaust never happened and those who dress as Pirates to worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His Noodly Appendages."

But Mr Liddell-Grainger has been "incensed" at the Holocaust comments, which he says are tantamount to "an insult to the memory of those who perished in it, to their families and, indeed, to all right-thinking members of society."

The MP said: "It is not a joke and to even mention the Holocaust in the same breath as the other nonsense just heaps insult upon insult.

"What is more, Mr Jones is saying that anyone - anyone at all - who criticises the county council or any of its services is a Holocaust denier.

"One, that is an extremely serious allegation for him to make and, two, he is forgetting that this is a free country where we have freedom of speech.

"I think his comment is absolutely outrageous."