The stage is set

摘要

"Ohhhh yes it is!" "Ohhhh no itisnt!"I have to admit that the HSE's new Myth-busters Challenge Panel has real potential to become a bit of a pantomime, with one side saying something was or wasn't done for health and safety reasons, and the other claiming health and safety had nothing to do with it. We got our first taste of how it's going to work with 'Seagull-gate' (see News, p6), from which three things occurred to me. Firstly, in most cases, the HSE is going to say that the decision was bogus, i.e that the party being complained about had no grounds for blaming their actions (or inaction) on health and safety. To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies'famous quote during the Profumo affair, "well, they would, wouldn't they?”