pumpkinstrokemarrow

Sparked off this morning on a small piece in yesterday's DT about bureaucracy putting the knife into a perfectly innocent conker match somewhere near Stansted Airport. Always rise to the bait of digs at bureaucracy.

The bureaucracy in question in this case was the insurance company which would not provide public liability insurance unless the conker match organisers ticked various boxes. So the bureaucrats in question were nothing to do with government, local or otherwise, rather with an organ of free enterprise. I think the story goes something like as follows.

If someone is running some kind of visitor attraction which I have paid to attend, and that someone does not take reasonable steps to prevent deaths of poodles, if my very important poodle is then killed in an accident, I am entitled to sue the someone for a large sum of money. Expensive business this post pettic traumatic syndrone (PPTS). By extension, if my very important hand is bruised by a conker, I am entitled to sue the someone. There are plenty of lawyers out there who will help you decide whether your bruise is actionable on a no win no fee basis.

So the local authority in which the attraction is to be held says to the supplier that you cannot have the attraction unless you get insurance for yourself. The local authority bureaucrats are just doing their duty to protect citizens from unscrupulous sellers of attractions. Not much point in suing some chap in a van without any insurance. Just look at Dale Farm.

So the supplier then goes to the insurance company which then goes to its lawyers. Its lawyers come up with a whole lot of stuff which the supplier has to do to make it less likely that he will be the subject of an action and to make it more likely that the insurance company does not have to pay up. Perfectly normal insurance company stuff; they are not in business to pay the price for sloppy supply. They do acts of god.

In this, the lawyers for the insurance company can make good use of the product of the bureaucrats of the Health & Safety, Equal Opportunities, Human Rights and European Communities empires. Does a one armed Angolan nun have reasonable access to the conker match? With or without the proper paperwork. Has reasonable provision been made for her to say compline afterwards? So to be fair to the DT, there are some bureaucrats on public funds who get in on the act.

Supplier ends up filling up forms which demonstrate that he is not sloppy. Or decides that it is all too much bother and goes in for some other occupation.

So on mature reflection, I think this is a societal problem, exacerbated by greed & enthusiasm in various of the parties, but not admitting to a quick fix, from the DT or anywhere else.