When the Glenrothes Gazette pictured a pile of fudge on its front page, readers could have been forgiven for thinking that Easter had come early.

But in fact, the paper’s eye-catching splash – under the headline “It’s all fudge!” – was referring to politicians in Fife who have ‘fudged’ making a decision on two local issues by requesting further consultations.

Councillors were given the opportunity to decide whether a local sports centre should be refurbished and stay at its current site or have a new facility built.

But despite a 10,000-signature petition calling for the Fife Institute to remain open at its current site, Fife Council has opted for a “wide-ranging public consultation this summer”.

In a separate issue, MSPs ‘fudged’ making a decision on removing the 80p toll from the Tay Bridge, favouring a review looking at “the economic, social and environmental impact of taking the tolls off both the Tay and Forth Road Bridges”, despite similar studies having already been done.

The Gazette’s deputy editor Mike Delaney said the front page seemed the only obvious way to report the stories after the word ‘fudge’ was used separately to describe the actions of politicians in both cases.

Mike told HoldtheFrontPage: “The only debate was whether to use a picture of a bar of fudge or cubes!

“Both the local council and the Scottish Parliament have kicked the issues into the long grass when they could have been settled.

“I think some of the politicians were quite surprised at the response from the local paper, thinking it was a bit of a tabloid approach.

“But our readers have lapped it up! Our letters column has been stuffed – and a lot of letters have come back using the ‘fudge’ terminology.”