The Health and Safety Gestapo have donned their jackboots again, and have stomped into the firestations of the London Firebrigade.Fire crews have been banned by Nanny from making home visits, to offer safety advice to people who smoke, unless the residents stub out all cigarettes at least one hour beforehand and open their windows.
What a larf!
Now correct me if I am wrong, but do not firemen kind of expose themselves to the far greater danger of smoke inhalation (burning houses, sofas, rubber, noxious chemicals etc) on a daily basis?
This nonsensical ruling was was recently sent out by London fire brigade chiefs, in order to comply with Nanny's workplace smoking ban.
The rationale being that people's homes are "the workplace" when firemen visit them to offer advice about fire safety.
Now, you would have thought that a smoker's home presents a possibly greater risk of catching fire than a non smoker's home. Therefore, are they not in greater need of advice about how to prevent a fire?
Approximately 40,000 prevention visits were carried out by London firemen last year. These help greatly reduce the number of fires and injuries from fires.
That doesn't bother Nanny, her edict states that anyone requesting a home visit will now be told to provide a "smoke-free environment to avoid threatening firefighters' health".
"Where the occupants are smokers, we ask that they refrain from smoking both during the visit and for a period prior to the visit.
We suggest a period of one hour."
Householders will be told to "ventilate the dwelling before the visit to clear any tobacco smoke."
How the fark does Nanny think that she will enforce this pile of dog doings then?
Aha, how silly of me, she will perform a risk assessment (pass the sick bag someone!).
Nanny says that if her rules are not followed, and a haze of smoke remains, the fireman must "complete a risk assessment and consider whether the visit should proceed."
What utter BOLLOCKS!
Seemingly if the brave fireman feels too afraid to enter, because of a waft of Rothmans, he will stand outside the front door and proffer advice.
I assume that risk assessment will soon have to be performed before firemen are allowed to attend a fire?
These Health and Safety knobheads and Nanny's rules will be the death of us all!
What about ambulances or doctor's visits?
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't just take the biscuit, this takes the barrel as well.
The problem is, Nanny makes these rules, people ignore them, when something goes wrong, Nanny then says that she will not pay out as 'elf'n'safety rules were not followed.
I still maintain that 'elf'n'safety officers have to come up with ideas to justify their non job's worth.
If there is any review or inquirey, the participants almost feel obliged to come up with something, they will never say, well actually it's fine and no change is necessary, they have to justify the inquirey and their role therein.
My bet is that 99% of the firefighters,not being of a risk-averse nature, are rolling their eyes at this and will just proceed with their jobs as they have always done.
ReplyDeleteIf I read this correctly, it must mean that - if somebody were unfortunate enough to have a house-fire and their kids were trapped in a smoke-filled room, no fireperson would act until a risk assessment (no doubt carried by some tame Elfin Safety Officer) had been done: too late to save the kids of course - but no risk to the firepersons
ReplyDeleteMmmmm; all sounds a bit like that non-copper and the kid drowning in a pool to me; or the Scottish Fireperson who got a bollocking for saving a drowning man.
It would be nice to have the same confidence in firefighters that Anon. does.
You couldn't make this up.
ReplyDeleteBut if you did, it would be met with disbelief.
You'd never get published.
Like most traditional Brits I've always tended to obey minor laws to the letter, and filled out the bureaucrat’s forms as truthfully as I can. It's been automatic. I've done this without thinking, but no more.
ReplyDeleteWhenever possible I just ignore them all now. It's a pity, because it's inevitable that I will ignore some rules that might end up causing some harm to me or to someone else. All I can say is sorry, but nanny must accept this is a price she will have to pay for being nanny.
Related -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article900459.ece --- Extinguishers banned in flats
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Actually, not the flats (yet), residenta may have their own. But multi-dwelling buildings must not supply them in corridors, stairwells, etc.
Query - is the Council willing to save a few pounds in the council flats this way?
It's all about Global Warming.
ReplyDeleteFry a few humans and it helps to keep the population down as so many of our intellectuals seem to think appropriate. The survivors can be fined for adding to carbon 'pollution' and the risk will mean the local council will need to increase charges to cover the cost.
I wonder if they have also considered the rate at which fire stations are being centralised and then considered how long it might take an appliance to reach a burning premises through the gridlock that their planned underinvestment in infrastructure will create?
I assume all firefighting apparatus has been removed form the Houses of Parliament already on the basis of the safety first argument? After all I wouldn't trust an MP to wipe its own arse properly so the chance of it being able to use a fire extinguisher is about nil.
Grant
The trouble is that faced with these absurdities our society falls back on its own myth of "our wonderful firemen", "our wonderful police", "our wonderful nurses", etc., instead of taking a long hard look at some of the cretins now despoiling the uniforms they don't even wear properly. Many of these pillars of the establishment are idle jobsworths drunk on the fantasy of their own importance and encouraged by the revolting role models seen on TV. No discipline, no sense of duty, no civic pride. We must have some of the scruffiest police officers in the world, in fact many third world countries put them to shame. Shambling, scruffy, hatless gum-chewing creatures in reflective jackets, shaven-headed Phil Mitchell lookalike louts in quasi-SS uniform, or big-arsed women in green overalls talking loudly and patronisingly to old people. I am reminded of a sequence of photographs showing a smart, upright and stalwart policeman in Victorian London removing his helmet and tunic to dive into the Thames to rescue a drowning man. Many of the modern emergency services personnel are not fit to lick his boots and I'm not afraid to say it. These poor, modern imitations cannot hide behind the reputation won by their illustrious predecessors for ever. "Times have changed" the soap-indoctrinated morons squeal. You bet they have and for those of us who can actually remember how it used to be that stupid excuse for the shithole we now live in is nothing to be proud of.
ReplyDelete