Yesterday, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron hit out at health and safety, labelling it a ‘monster’ which was top of his New Year’s resolution list to ‘kill off’. Speaking to an audience of small businesses at a PM Direct event in Maidenhead, he claimed health and safety costs the nation millions of pounds and was the “albatross around the neck of British businesses”.
The IOSH media team first spotted Cameron’s declarations being tweeted by a BBC news reporter on Twitter, and responded quickly in a bid to make sure our voice was heard rebuking the flippant remarks. We worked on a statement to press with IOSH head of policy and public affairs Richard Jones, which said the PM’s comments were appalling and unhelpful, considering regulations exist to prevent death, injury, or illness at work, protecting livelihoods in the process. A full report is available here:
http://www.iosh.co.uk/news_and_events/news/latest_member_news/camerons_monster_attack.aspx
The PM’s remarks were made all the more salient by the fact that yesterday, IOSH CEO Rob Strange met Professor Lofstedt to proceed with the good work already done.
IOSH’s social media channels were busy. It posted the story and quoted its rebuttal statement on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The news obviously struck a chord with people, as there were 25 comments on Facebook, we had dozens of re-tweets and around 30 new followers on Twitter, plus eight comments and five likes on LinkedIn.
Richard Jones was later interviewed by BBC Radio 5 Live’s Drive Time show, hitting back at Cameron’s remarks. The interview can be listened to here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b018tz47/5_live_Drive_05_01_2012/?-t=2h39m5s
The response was picked up by numerous national and regional press outlets, including the Press Association, the national newswire, and has appeared in national print outlets today including Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. So far, nearly 10 regional newspapers have covered the story in print this morning and there have been as many as 100 hits online. These include:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/05/david-cameron-health-safety-monster?newsfeed=true
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/latestnews/view/228608/PM-I-will-kill-off-safety-culture/
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24025511-pm-i-will-kill-off-safety-culture.do
http://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/293702/PM-I-will-kill-off-safety-culture
http://www.scottishsundayexpress.co.uk/posts/view/293702/PM-I-will-kill-off-safety-culture
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/293702/PM-I-will-kill-off-safety-culture
The prime minister needed to refine his comments instead of trying to appeal to a broad audience. On the frivolous side, taming the safety fanatics with respect to such items as banning “conkers”, “closing events in case something might happen although it has never in its history happened”, etc, gets my 100% support. Life itself is a risk.
On the other side of the coin lies the real serious stuff. HSE investigations into industrial accidents, control of building sites etc. This is the real work of HSE as far as I’m concerned and gets my 100% support. As an electrical (HV) engineer I have first hand knowledge of the HSE involvement in the industry and the sterling work done unknown to the public.
The prime minister trivializes the issues by grouping everything under one all embracing heading.
In general I basically support the PM but in this instance he should have shown better judgement.