Liberal Burblings

A priceless example of total bovine scatology from David Cameron today. An entire speech based on complete myth, ridiculous generalisations and scare stories. He listed a series of supposed examples and said that the ‘health and safety culture’ needs to change because of them.

Let’s go through them:

When children are made to wear goggles by their headteacher to play conkers

This has happened at one primary school five years ago and the headteacher concerned explained on PM today that his school was not wrapped in cotton wool and in fact was the top local school for rugby league. He also said that he’d had letters from four people who had their eye taken out playing conkers. Previously at the school, playing conkers was not allowed because of the risk, so he said to the children “OK, if you want to play, bring your goggles in and you can play”. So they happily did so.

when trainee hairdressers are not allowed scissors in the classroom,

This seems to refer to one page in a training manual which explains that scissors are not required for styling sessions.

when office workers are banned from moving a chair without expert supervision

You probably work in an office. Have you ever heard of this happening? Er….no, I suspect is the answer.

when staff at a railway station don’t help a young mum carry her baby son’s buggy because they are not insured

OK. So will a David Cameron government indemnify railway staff against claims for accidents doing such tasks? Er…no.

when village fetes are cancelled because residents can’t face jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops

Oh it happens all the time. Not.

And when you delve into Cameron’s speech there are some disturbing elements.

At the moment, staffing needs in the NHS are being undermined by European regulations that dictate the number of hours that junior doctors are allowed to work.

That’s why we want to negotiate the restoration of Britain’s control over EU social and employment legislation, in particular the aspects of the Working Time Directive which are causing the most problems in our public services.

Oh, so he’s going to make junior doctors work longer, then. So back to the bad old days when they worked so long that they made mistakes…that sort of thing? Great.

And the heroism that has traditionally defined our police has been challenged by a culture that puts the safety of individual officers above that safety of the public…

…a tragic example of which is the shooting in Highmoor Cross, where two young sisters died in a house while the police did not send officers to the scene because it was ‘not safe’.

That’s why we have said we will amend the application of Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act to the police, to ensure that when they are at work…….exercising their role as constables……the risk to the public is prioritised above the risk to individual officers

It would be fascinating to hear the view of actual police officers on this. Most entertaining, I would think. For that one example quoted there must be thousands where police women and men have actually lost their lives or been injured to save members of the public. It makes one wonder….is David Cameron going to put himself forward to be a police constable? ….to put his life on the line to save members of the public?

And I also want the law to be quite clear that there is no obligation on activity organisers or public authorities to warn of an obvious risk.

It is time that we rid our country of those ludicrous warning notices stating the completely obvious.

The problem here is that what is obvious to one person is not obvious to another person. What is obvious to David Cameron may not be obvious to any other random person from the 60 odd million people in this country. I believe this diktat from Cameron would create an extra level of top-down pressure based on the “Cameron obvious” principle. When push comes to shove, the presence of warning signs don’t normally kill people, lack of signs can kill people.

can we help alleviate some of health and safety oversight that currently burdens small, local and voluntary organisations? To my mind, there is good reason for this.If, for instance, four or five people come together to clean their local park, they do not as a group fall under health and safety law at all. But they may do if the work benefits the local council running the park, as it then becomes their employer. Yet, there is no lack of information because it is clear for all to see precisely what they are doing.There is no power imbalance because there they have all entered into that endeavour voluntarily.And there is no profit motive – on the contrary, their only motive is to do good. So I have asked David Young to investigate what could be done to exempt them from regulatory burdens.

What utter cobblers. I’ve taken part in small groups cleaning up public areas. We had the odd yellow tabards, gloves etc. Big deal.

Reading this speech, I really begin to wonder about David Cameron. He can only be playing to his “core vote”; the page three Telegraph cornflake spitters. But it really feels as though he is a “cornflake spitter” himself now. The speech is very long and there is the odd good idea in it. But basically he is tilting at windmills. It’s a classic “fings ain’t what they used to be” speech. And he has a credibility problem. He couches his speech with so many ridiculous examples, as above, that it renders the whole thing laughable. Because the speech is mostly based on ridiculous generalisations and myths, he will have a problem actually changing things if he comes to office. How can you fix a myth? Or will he provide mythical fixes? That is, will we have PM Cameron announcing in two years time that goggles are no longer being required for conker matches (when in fact it happened once five years ago and hasn’t been repeated) ? The headteacher involved said on PM, speaking about the wider field of health and safety in schools, will David Cameron be the one who goes to see the parents to tell them their son or daughter has died during an activity at their school?

To quote Bet Lynch:

Will ee ‘eck as like

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