Oxymoron – Health and Safety

 

Figures produced using Met Office temperature data, says that the risk of ill health and death increases for every degree above a particular maximum threshold. The temperature in Leeds on 19^th July were 20*c, very hot for many people. Last year, on the same date, temperatures were 12*c lower. The ambulance services have seen a 9% increase in call-outs. Andrew Jenkins, deputy director of medical and clinical services, said: “It is fair to say that the weather has affected all the demand”. Health bosses said there was a big jump in new attendances at A&E during the first half of July compared with the same period in the previous two years.

The NHS advises people to keep cool and drink plenty of fluids in order to avoid heat exhaustion, heatstroke and dehydration. And what does my employer do? They tell me that I cannot wear shorts because its against health and safety policy. Surely this is just very poor management using health and safety as an excuse? I drove passed a school crossing patrol officer (lollipop man), and he was wearing his full length coat. The thing that I have in common with that lollipop man is that we are both employed by the health and safety mad, Leeds City Council.

the leeds citizen

Why is it that so many of us are so stubbornly resistant to joining in with anything to do with local government?

I only ask because it turns out that our local council’s flagship vehicle for finding out what we think and what we’re worried about – the Citizens’ Panel – is struggling to get enough people to sign up.

Re-launched as a mainly online tool in October last year by Leeds City Council, the panel set itself the target of enlisting 6,000 people to participate in regular surveys about local services and issues.

That’s 6,000 over-18s from a population of around 600,000. Just one per cent.

But only 3,900 of us have bothered so far, despite a pretty comprehensive promotional campaign that used social and traditional media, plus educational, housing and other networks to reach up to 200,000 of us.

“Efforts to undertake citizens panel recruitment have been more…

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£100,000 worth of advertising?

In reply to the Olympic athlete, Stephen Parry, his letter in the Yorkshire Evening Post about getting more children to learn to swim. It is a very worthy cause, a “life skill” that can save a persons life. However, putting the responsibility on schools to teach children to swim is a step in the wrong direction. Parents can get paternity and maternity benefits, maternity grants from the social fund; child benefit, tax allowances and even parents that earn up to £72,000 can qualify. And even without all this help, the responsibility of what a child learns should be down to the parents, with the help of schools and other Government agencies. Stephen Parrys’ letter states that Kelloggs will fund school swimming to the tune of £100,000, the problem is not funding. The problem is knowing who has the final responsibility to teach the children to swim, schools or parents. What next, will schools teach youngsters how to ride a bike?

Financial Transaction Tax

The gap between the rich and the poor increased under Tony Blair and it must be increasing even more under David Cameron. The Conservatives want to scrap the 50% income tax rate, whilst more and more companies benefit from tax havens. The banking sector has the largest number of tax haven companies, with the big four UK banks – HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Lloyds – having a total of 1,649 offshore subsidiaries. Even Leeds United was benefiting from its owner being listed in a tax haven!

And of course the banks benefited very much from the printing of extra money with Quantitative Easing (QE), as can be seen by their recent profits. Back in 2010 Gordon Brown was saying that there should be a bank levy, but instead the banks prosper. Perhaps the answer is the Robin Hood Tax – a tiny tax on the financial sector can generate £20 billion every year. Just three of the main businesspeople behind the Robin Hood tax – FSA Chairman Lord Turner, financier George Soros, entrepreneur extraordinaire Warren Buffet.

An existing example of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) is the Uks current Stamp Duty Reserve Tax. This tax on share purchases was introduced in the UK in 1963. The initial rate of the UK Stamp Duty was 2%, subsequently fluctuating between 1% and 2%, until a process of its gradual reduction started in 1984, when the rate was halved, first from 2% to 1%, and then once again in 1986 from 1% to the current level of 0.5%. Just raising this tax by 0.5% would raise over £6 billion.

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