The lone voice, referring to the Daily Mail (caveat lector), this morning:
Coastguards have been ordered to fill in a health and safety questionnaire before they can respond to calls for help. All 400 of Britain’s rescue units have been told that before they travel to an accident scene they must complete a ‘vehicle pre-journey risk assessment’. It is feared lives may be lost as vital minutes could be taken up with the assessments just as rescuers are preparing their response to emergency callouts. Under the new rules, the teams have to take the time to answer four questions on the type of rescue and journey they are about to undertake.
Nostradunderclass, last August:
(Tempest. Waves crash. Winds howl. In the offing, a vessel in distress. Hooting of siren. Rockets and flares shot off. Alarums. Pagers. The doors of the Lifeboat House open. The HEALTH AND SAFETY INSPECTOR walks alongside the slipway to the water’s edge. He produces a decibel meter and holds it up. He notes down the reading, puts away the meter and produces a set of ear-defenders, which he puts on. He produces a hand-held anemometer, holds it up and reads it, making a note on his clipboard. He gazes at the sky, taking note of the number, size and behaviour of the clouds, then at the sea, and the number, size and behaviour of the waves. He produces a copy of the Daily Mirror and looks up his horoscope, and that of the lifeboat. He squats in the surf and, with a complex and expensive-looking instrument, measures the hardness of the rocks. Finally he turns and walks back to the Lifeboat House, from which several members of the CREW are now peering anxiously)
THE CREW (variously) Well? What’s happening? What’s he say?
THE INSPECTOR What? (he lifts one of the ear-defenders) What?
THE CREW (in chorus) Can we launch the lifeboat?
THE INSPECTOR (consults his clipboard at some length, then shakes his head) Naah.
Of course there is a difference between the Lifeboat Service run by the RNLI and HM Coastguard. The latter is paid for with taxes; the former is paid for by charity.
