I may be able to get a bit of cake at the library

[Gob]

Margaret Thatcher’s former trade secretary Lord Young, who has drawn up a string of proposals accepted by David Cameron, says a decade of Labour laws and regulations will now be torn up.

The assault on the excesses of the health and safety culture will form a key part of the Tory Party conference which begins tomorrow in Birmingham, and is seen as a potential vote winner.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Lord Young unveiled plans which include:

■ Local authorities who wrongly try to block events on health and safety grounds will be forced to pay large-scale compensation;

■ No-win, no-fee advertising encouraging personal injury claims will face a major crackdown;

■ Red tape that means many children never go on school outings is to be scrapped

■ People performing first aid or Good Samaritan acts are to be exempted from being sued.

Lord Young, 78, said ‘petty tyrants’ had been allowed to flourish under Labour.

He said he had uncovered extraordinary examples, including a restaurant that would not give out toothpicks for fear of injury, a headteacher who told pupils not to walk under a conker tree without helmets and a council that banned a pancake race because it was raining.

‘It makes you wonder what sort of world we have come to,’ Lord Young said. ‘It has gone to such extremes. What I have seen everywhere is a complete lack of common sense. People have been living in an alternative universe.’

Lord Young said he was particularly concerned about council officials who often claimed powers to stop village fetes, sporting events or other events when they have none. In one example, organisers of the annual Whitsun cheese-rolling down a steep hill in the Cotswolds cancelled it this year after pressure from police and local authorities.

In future those affected by wrong decisions may go to the local government ombudsman who will be able to insist that a council pays compensation.

Asked how much local authorities would be forced to pay, Lord Young said: ‘Whatever the loss is. I want officials to think twice and make sure they have the authority.

‘This sort of nonsense has come from the last government trying to create a nanny state and trying to keep everybody in cotton wool.

‘Frankly if I want to do something stupid and break my leg or neck, that’s up to me. I don’t need a council to tell me not to be an idiot. I can be an idiot all by myself.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z119aoxi2I

[Lord Jim]

Lord Young, 78,

There's an oxymoron....

[loCAtek]

Well, that's cool

[Scooter]

■ No-win, no-fee advertising encouraging personal injury claims will face a major crackdown

Yes, by all means, let's not allow people to know about legal services available to them to sue corporations whose negligent or reckless conduct causes them injury.

■ People performing first aid or Good Samaritan acts are to be exempted from being sued.

Even if their behaviour is reckless?

[Gob]

I think this is the sort of lunacy that needs to end..

The Queen and Prince Charles have been banned from a pensioner's home - on health and safety grounds.

Royalty-lover Jean Thomas proudly hung a picture of the royals on the stairs landing outside her sheltered housing flat in Swansea.

But safety officials ordered the 2ft by 18ins photograph to be pulled down - in case it fell on a fireman in an emergency.


Too risky: Jean Thomas, from Swansea, South Wales has been told to take down her framed photograph of the Queen and Prince Charles, on the wall behind her, due to health and safety rules

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z126QNM1Ml

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z126PZ1Acw

[Scooter]

Another classic piece of Daily Mail misinformation. No one was directly quoted in this story as saying the picture had to go because it might fall on a firefighter, and yet they repeated that phrase, unattributed, twice.

[loCAtek]

I think Scooter has a point aboutThe Daily Mail;


Daily Mail front page 7 July 2010.

[Gob]

A Swansea Council spokesman denied it was anything personal against the Royal Family.

He said: 'Fire safety legislation requires landlords to ensure homes with communal areas and entrances are safe and well protected in the event of fire.

'We have been working closely with the fire Service to keep entrances, exit and escape routes free of combustible materials and trip hazards or obstructions.

'We realise some people have personalised these areas to make them feel more homely and we apologise for any inconvenience.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z12B3AR6fH

So the local authority WERE asked about the removal of the picture, and did confirm it had to be removed due to it being "a personalised item".

So I think the Mail is spot on here.

BBC confirms;

A council spokesman said landlords must ensure communal areas are safe.

Mrs Thomas hung the picture of the Prince of Wales' investiture on the stairs outside her sheltered housing flat.

But the 2ft by 18ins photograph was taken by the warden..





....The order to clear the communal areas at the 33-bed-complex was made by council officials.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-11514912
.

[Scooter]

So point out for me again where there is an attributed quotation saying that the picture had to be removed because it might fall on a firefighter?

So the local authority WERE asked about the removal of the picture, and did confirm it had to be removed due to it being "a personalised item".

No, they didn't. They said it had to be removed because it constituted a combustion and/or trip hazard in a common area - note, NOT in the woman's home as the article alleges - yet another piece of factual legerdemain by the Daily Mail.

[Gob]

The sheltered housing is her home. Sorry if the Daily Mail doesn't take into account your need to nit pick when it reports.

[Andrew D]

They said it had to be removed because it constituted a combustion and/or trip hazard in a common area - note, NOT in the woman's home as the article alleges - yet another piece of factual legerdemain by the Daily Mail.

The article quite clearly states:

Royalty-lover Jean Thomas proudly hung a picture of the royals on the stairs landing outside her sheltered housing flat in Swansea.

There may be various factual inaccuracies in the article. But this is plainly not one of them.

[Scooter]

The stairs outside her flat i.e. a common area, not her home.

I live in a highrise condo. I don't consider the hallway outside my front door part of my home. I think the condo board would have something to say about it if I started decorating it as if it were.

The sheltered housing is her home. Sorry if the Daily Mail doesn't take into account your need to nit pick when it reports.

And yet no one has yet been able to come up with an attributed quotation to support the contention that she was asked to remove the picture because it might fall on a firefighter. Is it nitpicking to point out that the article has made outrageous claims which it has made no attempt whatsoever to support, and which are flatly contradicted by the only authoritative sources it has chosen to quote?

[Gob]

Again a nit pick on the words used, nothing on the actual point. It was removed due to the potential fire hazard. Do you consider the picture in the OP " a potential fire hazard"?

'We have been working closely with the fire Service to keep entrances, exit and escape routes free of combustible materials and trip hazards or obstructions.

So Scoot, I'll take it you have no pictures up in your flat, as you consider them, like the one in the illustration, to be a "fire hazard"?

[Scooter]

Again a nit pick on the words used, nothing on the actual point.

The actual point is that put up a picture in the common area of the building, which she had no right to do, so whatever the reasons for taking it down, it shouldn't have been there in the first place. If she likes the picture so much she can put it up on one of the walls within her own flat.

And since when is it "nitpicking" to demolish the central premise of an article, remind me to pick up a copy of the dictionary you are working from.

My flat is my personal property with which I, within certain reasonable limits, may do what I please. The common areas outside my flat, which is what we are talking about here, are a completely different matter, and I am not permitted to hang anything up on the walls out there.

you consider them, like the one in the illustration, to be a "fire hazard"

In a common area, which ALL of the residents may need to use as a route of escape in the event of a fire, yes, a picture is both combustible and, if knocked off the wall and is lying on the staircase over which it hangs, constitutes a trip hazard.

[Gob]

Ok, again we've reached an impasse.

I believe this womans picture could have been accomodated. If it was seen as a hazard, which I cannot see how it would be as millions of people manage to survive having pictures on their walls without serious injury, then anyone with a little gumption could have dealt with it.

It's not unusual to have pictures up in such areas, and they do add to the joy of the elderly residents.

I see this as a blanket application of H&S rules, rather than a little common sense being used.

I do not see why the image could remain, as it does not seem the other residents objected.

You see things differently.

[Scooter]

I don't claim that this picture could not have been accommodated. It might have been securely bolted to the wall, for example, which would have prevented it from being knocked on to the stairs by residents brushing past it while clinging to the wall in the event of an evacuation. But due to the deliberately distorted reporting in the article you have presented, we will never know if this was even presented as an option, or whether this woman would have accepted not having control over its removal if she wished to adorn her own flat with it at some future time.

[Gob]

Does it matter? The picture was removed by the wardens, the reason given was "fire risk", the elderly owner is sad about its loss. It's a nonsense.

But hey, I'm sure you'll have fun with these nuts...

It is an autumnal hazard that mankind has successfully negotiated for millions of years.

Not that you would know from the latest advice from hospital health and safety chiefs who reckon that, after all this time, we need a little help in dealing with the danger of acorns. As a result signs have been put up around an oak tree warning ‘Caution Please Be Aware Of The Falling Acorns’.



Staff at the Brentwood Community Hospital in Essex erected the sign after a patient stepped on an acorn last year and suffered a slight sprain to her ankle. Although the patient did not sue, gardeners have also now been ordered to collect fallen acorns in the hospital grounds.

Andrew McGowan, 28, who was visiting a patient yesterday, said: ‘It’s health and safety madness really. You don’t need a sign to warn you about things falling from the tree. It happens at this time of year and you can see acorns on the ground.’


Details emerged days after visitors to a park in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, were warned of falling conkers with a sign that proclaimed: ‘Beware Falling Conkers – Please Proceed with Care.’



The Brentwood hospital yesterday defended the move, citing the slip last year. A spokesman added: ‘Our groundsmen now sweep acorns up and they have put the signs up just to be on the safe side.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z12IoxiZD6

[Sean]

The actual point is that put up a picture in the common area of the building, which she had no right to do, so whatever the reasons for taking it down, it shouldn't have been there in the first place. If she likes the picture so much she can put it up on one of the walls within her own flat.

My bold...

Do you have any documentation or attributed quotes to support that Scoot?

[Scooter]

Its proof enough that she could be required to remove the picture, which wouldn't have happened if she had been content to bask in its beauty within the confines of her own flat.

[Scooter]

Does it matter?

Only if the truth matters.

Of course, we already know the answer to that where the Daily Mail is concerned.