Last updated 11:21, Thursday, 13 November 2008

DEEP joy. At last a health and safety expert who speaks commonsense.

Tom Mullarkey, who is chief executive of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, echoes what the vast majority of us already think – that absolute safety is impossible and bureaucrats should stop intervening unnecessarily in public life.

It’s just a pity that Mr Mullarkey’s message has not got across to the vast army of local council and Government officials armed with their clipboards and their petty rules and regulations.

And it’s high time something was done to clip the wings of the people profiting from the compensation culture.

Giving back to people the right to use their own judgement and removing the ludicrous cloying rules that are destroying our traditional sense of adventure, would be a start.

If health and safety had taken this sort of grip on the nation decades ago we would have had no Chris Bonington, Ranulph Fiennes or, quite likely, half our Olympic medal winners. All would have been doing activities regarded as far too dangerous for the good of their health.

And I’ve never met a schoolchild yet who was inspired by an H and S official.