A Place to Stand

David Cameron has done a rather good speech on the need to slash the amount spent on Health & Safety. He naturally concentrates on its direct effects on what individuals get prevented from doing rather than the overall damage to the economy (4 million man years a year wasted) & causing over 1,000 deaths through poverty for every one it "saves" as I have done but it is a progressive step. This is the conclusion & he makes a good point I hadn't about the need to reform liability rules before we get as browbeaten by parasitic lawyers as America is

I know the over-the-top health and safety culture that has grown in our country in recent years provokes a lot of understandable anger.

But anger itself is not solution.

Instead we need a forensic examination of what has gone wrong and the steps we need to take to put it right.

We know what has gone wrong.

Excessive rules have given the impression that we have a right to a risk-free life…

…and that impression has been exacerbated by prominent claims and pay-outs.

The consequence has been spiralling costs and a slow death of discretion, judgement and social responsibility.

And what I have described today is the beginnings of putting it right.

For every piece of health and safety legislation, we need to ask whether it fulfils a useful purpose – and if not, it must go.

And we must bring some common sense to the laws surrounding compensation.

I want people to know that with the Conservatives, government will let you get on with your life without unnecessary rules and regulations.

I want everyone to know that with the Conservatives, if you do good, get involved and make a contribution, the system will back you.

And I want people to know that with the Conservatives, the legal system will be there protecting those who need it most.

That’s the change I believe people want – and that is the change we offer.”

I saw this speech via LibDem Voice which was rubbishing the idea that we could cut the nanny state in the normal illiberal manner. I put up this comment

You say the conkers stray is a myth. And to prove this quote a department PR piece saying it is true but is such a silly idea most schools don’t do it. This is a redefinition of “myth”. When it is true it isn’t a myth.

This is an unusually sensible position of Cameron’s & the “LibDems” have put themselves firmly on the side of ever bigger & immensely destructive government micromanaging of everything no matter how silly. National wealth is the single greatest factor in safety & it is easy to prove that all the national wealth wasted on such nanny-statism causes the deaths of orders of magnitude more people than the H&S regulations save. Their purpose is bureaucratic big government for its own sake & absolutely nothing to do with safety. How illiberal of you to support that.

which in the party's normal illiberal manner, they censored.

Labels: British politics, Government parasitism