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 The Daily Mail has a mocking attitude to health and safety, and embarrassingly (for a supposed mid-market paper) they are increasingly copying Richard Littlejohn's phonetic spelling of the phrase to belittle it. If any week can remind the public of the fundamental importance behind health and safety it is surely the week that has seen the 20 year anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster.
Those that try to make the world a safer place to live in have been described by the Daily Mail as 'stormtroopers', 'zealots', 'extremists' and the Daily Mail has run stories where Health and Safety inspectors have been the 'arch-villain'. When people do die in a pretty horrible accident, Health and Safety is still mocked by Mail readers. Even health and safety improvements for the new Wembley haven't escaped censure. The Daily Mail relishes the opportunity to wheel out examples of 'victims' of health and safety law; even running articles claiming the work place was a 'happier' place before health and safety: 'Life before elf 'n' safety: Rare images of a harsher, but arguably happier, Britain at work'. Today, however, they have fallen strangely quiet about health and safety with this story: Boy, 15, crushed to death by falling wall after being told to 'prop it up'.. For some reason the Daily Mail is not allowing comments on this article, and I think I know the reason why:
A 15-year-old boy was crushed to death by a falling wall he had been ordered to prop up as his horrified brother watched, a court heard today. Adam Gosling died instantly from massive head injuries during building work in the grounds of a five-bedroom house in Hadley Wood, north London. He and his 18-year-old brother Dean had been left unsupervised to knock down the seven-metre high wall by their employer Colin Holtom, an Old Bailey jury was told. Holtom, of Meadow Way, Latchingdon, Essex, who allegedly had a 'laissez faire' attitude to health and safety, is accused of manslaughter by gross negligence... Holtom denies manslaughter as well as a charge under the Health and Safety Act. Now, I wonder if the Daily Mail is not allowing comments on the article1 because readers would be pretty quick to point out the Daily Mail's role in creating such a 'laissez faire attitude'. They might point out that running articles on the Victorian workplace (before the dreaded 'elf 'n' safety) being a happier one the modern workplace where safety is paramount and using 'elf 'n' safety' in a front page headline is specifically designed to generate and feed such an attitude towards health and safety. Perhaps a newspaper that publishes a columnist that is rebuked by the Health and Safety Executive for having a 'flippant approach to' health and safety that is 'not only inaccurate2, but trivialises a serious issue' is not willing to allow comments on how their vilification campaign is going. At least they managed to spell it properly in this article.
1- Although, as pointed out in the comments here, this is actually because the court case is ongoing, therefore they cannot risk having comments made on it. However, my point still stands, honest.
2 - The columnist is, of course, Richard Littlejohn. The HSE were criticising Richard's false belief that ladders had been banned. The HSE were keen to point out that: 'There are no health and safety laws banning ladders. The Work at Height Regulations were introduced in 2005 and since then the use of ladders for minor work at building sites has continued legally and safely.' In response to this letter to the editor (dated 2 September 2008) Richard ran two columns [ here & here] in October 2008 still implying that ladders had been outlawed by health and safety. He received a further rebuke from the HSE in January 2009 regarding his misrepresentation of health and safety regarding noise. |
