25 years

[BroxburnHibee]

since this happened............


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12300227

Time flies.........can remember how shocked I was when it happened.

Even more shocked when the inquiry found out it could have easily been avoided.

[Phil D. Rolls]

since this happened............


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12300227

Time flies.........can remember how shocked I was when it happened.

Even more shocked when the inquiry found out it could have easily been avoided.

Terrible thing to happen, that said the people on the Challenger knew that space travel is a risky business. IMO, the real tragedies we should remember are things like the Herald of Free Enterprise and other slaughters of innocent peoplle like the Kings Cross fire.

Funnily, these don't seem to get quite the same coverage. There is a long list of disasters on public transport that happened on the Tories' watch. They can't be changed, but there is a need to be vigilant - they'll do it again.

[magpie1892]

There is a long list of disasters on public transport that happened on the Tories' watch. They can't be changed, but there is a need to be vigilant - they'll do it again.

In terms of 'mad as a frog with a pocketwatch' delusion, this is right up there.

You should give the family of Jean Charles de Menezes a call, see if they agree with you.

Priceless.

[Phil D. Rolls]

In terms of 'mad as a frog with a pocketwatch' delusion, this is right up there.

You should give the family of Jean Charles de Menezes a call, see if they agree with you.

Priceless.

Honestly, I think you might have a point to make, but I'm struggling to see what it is and how it relates to mine. As far as I can remember these disasters did happen at a time of Tory laissez faire attitudes to pesky things like people's safety.

While Jean Charles de Menezes death was wrong, and a symptom of other thigs wrong with our government, it didn't really have anything to do with people not taking the proper safety precautions.

I've only raised these disasters as the whole Challenger thing took me back in time in a Life on Mars type of way. Jogged my memory, that sort of thing.

[Beefster]

Terrible thing to happen, that said the people on the Challenger knew that space travel is a risky business. IMO, the real tragedies we should remember are things like the Herald of Free Enterprise and other slaughters of innocent peoplle like the Kings Cross fire.

Funnily, these don't seem to get quite the same coverage. There is a long list of disasters on public transport that happened on the Tories' watch. They can't be changed, but there is a need to be vigilant - they'll do it again.

This one's belter. The Tories will be getting the blame for 9/11, Lockerbie and the 2004 Tsunami next.

In what way was wood on an escalator built decades earlier and staff forgetting to close doors on a ship the Tories fault?

[PeeJay]

Terrible thing to happen, that said the people on the Challenger knew that space travel is a risky business. IMO, the real tragedies we should remember are things like the Herald of Free Enterprise and other slaughters of innocent peoplle like the Kings Cross fire.

Funnily, these don't seem to get quite the same coverage. There is a long list of disasters on public transport that happened on the Tories' watch. They can't be changed, but there is a need to be vigilant - they'll do it again.

You don't think this was a real tragedy? I doubt very much whether the people on board the Challenger knew the risk NASA was prepared to take with "their" lives by cutting corners, particularly with this flight, although a case can certainly be made for claiming that every "Space Shuttle" flight was subject to similar blind faith that everything would be just fine.

Pointless concept and so badly underfunded and managed - so many lives needlessly wasted, I feel. 50 flights a year indeed!

[Phil D. Rolls]

You don't think this was a real tragedy? I doubt very much whether the people on board the Challenger knew the risk NASA was prepared to take with "their" lives by cutting corners, particularly with this flight, although a case can certainly be made for claiming that every "Space Shuttle" flight was subject to similar blind faith that everything would be just fine.

Pointless concept and so badly underfunded and managed - so many lives needlessly wasted, I feel. 50 flights a year indeed!

Yes, it was a real tragedy, apologies for the choice of words.

[Mibbes Aye]

This one's belter. The Tories will be getting the blame for 9/11, Lockerbie and the 2004 Tsunami next.

In what way was wood on an escalator built decades earlier and staff forgetting to close doors on a ship the Tories fault?

I would settle for the Tories taking the blame for flatlining the economy. They want us to believe it was the wrong kind of snow though....

It's surely not overly sophisticated to point out the following:

The primary aim of a private sector company is to maximise return for its shareholders.

The primary aim of health and safety regulation is to protect people (both employees and the wider public).

Regulation in areas such as health and safety can limit the potential to maximise profit.

Health and safety regulation is in the sights of the Tories again - as the Tory Work and Pensions Minister put it, so it "...isn't a burden on business"

I suppose my point is that governments have the capacity to set or change cultures. I think these cultures transcend the difference between public and private sector (overstated in many contexts IMO). In the early 80s and now again, we have seen a government with a zealot's agenda to minimise the role of the state.

It seems naive to think that people whose primary and legitimate aim is to make profit, wouldn't capitalise on that, and allow profit to be a higher priority than a robust attitude towards safety. In a way, you can't really blame capitalism or the free market for being, well...capitalist and free-market.

Likewise, a public sector savaged to the bone by cuts can only afford to ensure it runs from day-to-day. Things like ensuring it runs to a suitable standard and level of safety come second-best (which of course makes the case for privatising it easier).

[Beefster]

I would settle for the Tories taking the blame for flatlining the economy. They want us to believe it was the wrong kind of snow though....

It's surely not overly sophisticated to point out the following:

The primary aim of a private sector company is to maximise return for its shareholders.

The primary aim of health and safety regulation is to protect people (both employees and the wider public).

Regulation in areas such as health and safety can limit the potential to maximise profit.

Health and safety regulation is in the sights of the Tories again - as the Tory Work and Pensions Minister put it, so it "...isn't a burden on business"

I suppose my point is that governments have the capacity to set or change cultures. I think these cultures transcend the difference between public and private sector (overstated in many contexts IMO). In the early 80s and now again, we have seen a government with a zealot's agenda to minimise the role of the state.

It seems naive to think that people whose primary and legitimate aim is to make profit, wouldn't capitalise on that, and allow profit to be a higher priority than a robust attitude towards safety. In a way, you can't really blame capitalism or the free market for being, well...capitalist and free-market.

Likewise, a public sector savaged to the bone by cuts can only afford to ensure it runs from day-to-day. Things like ensuring it runs to a suitable standard and level of safety come second-best (which of course makes the case for privatising it easier).

So it wasn't the Tories fault that an escalator was partially built of wood? Surely a Labour government hadn't gotten rid of the wood and Thatcher put it straight back in?

Did the Tories introduce some legislation saying that it was okay to capsize a boat due to incompetence?

Can I blame Potter's Bar, Ladbroke Grove, Southall and others on New Labour or would that just come across as opportunistic, pretty tasteless and, to be honest, trivialising the real reasons for the accidents?

[magpie1892]

Can I blame Potter's Bar, Ladbroke Grove, Southall and others on New Labour or would that just come across as opportunistic, pretty tasteless and, to be honest, trivialising the real reasons for the accidents?

It's obviously the Tories' fault that Labour didn't use their thumping 1997 majority and 13-year rule to renationalise the railways, etc.

Obviously.

[Mibbes Aye]

So it wasn't the Tories fault that an escalator was partially built of wood? Surely a Labour government hadn't gotten rid of the wood and Thatcher put it straight back in?

Did the Tories introduce some legislation saying that it was okay to capsize a boat due to incompetence?

Can I blame Potter's Bar, Ladbroke Grove, Southall and others on New Labour or would that just come across as opportunistic, pretty tasteless and, to be honest, trivialising the real reasons for the accidents?

Where you promote a culture of profit being the primary goal, risk-taking becomes the norm and when it all goes pear-shaped it tends to be normal, everyday people who suffer.

Which is pretty much the line the Tories spun about how Labour regulated the banks (ignoring the global nature of it, but let's leave that aside for now :wink:). But then Tory hypocrisy is far from something new, isn't it?

[RyeSloan]

I would settle for the Tories taking the blame for flatlining the economy. They want us to believe it was the wrong kind of snow though....

It's surely not overly sophisticated to point out the following:

The primary aim of a private sector company is to maximise return for its shareholders.

The primary aim of health and safety regulation is to protect people (both employees and the wider public).

Regulation in areas such as health and safety can limit the potential to maximise profit.

Health and safety regulation is in the sights of the Tories again - as the Tory Work and Pensions Minister put it, so it "...isn't a burden on business"

I suppose my point is that governments have the capacity to set or change cultures. I think these cultures transcend the difference between public and private sector (overstated in many contexts IMO). In the early 80s and now again, we have seen a government with a zealot's agenda to minimise the role of the state.

It seems naive to think that people whose primary and legitimate aim is to make profit, wouldn't capitalise on that, and allow profit to be a higher priority than a robust attitude towards safety. In a way, you can't really blame capitalism or the free market for being, well...capitalist and free-market.

Likewise, a public sector savaged to the bone by cuts can only afford to ensure it runs from day-to-day. Things like ensuring it runs to a suitable standard and level of safety come second-best (which of course makes the case for privatising it easier).

Wow on a thread with an OP a thread about the Challenger disaster and what impact it may have had you post this.

“Zealot’s agenda”…..”a public sector savaged to the bone by cuts”

Emotive language for sure but really it is reflective of reality?

Also you seem to be alluding that our national government is looking to sweep aside health and safety rules to allow increased profits? When you consider European safety and health legislation do you think they could do this even if they wanted to?

Is it not a fact that a lot of SME’s are struggling with the huge amount of bureaucracy that Health and Safety rules (amongst others) has created and that a review of this burden would be welcomed by most and that you actually have no idea what so ever what changes may be put forward nor if those changes would impact the workers health and safety.

It's surely not overly sophisticated to also point out that workers tend to be a companies biggest asset so even in a free market, and particularly a knowledge based one like the UK’s, it makes sense to ensure they can complete their jobs in a safe environment thus allowing them to continue working and to continue generating profits for the company that employs them?

[RyeSloan]

since this happened............


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12300227

Time flies.........can remember how shocked I was when it happened.

Even more shocked when the inquiry found out it could have easily been avoided.

NASA absolutely failed to have saftey as the number one priority and these poor souls paid the price.

The whole space shuttle programme was pretty mis-guided from the start and should have been ended much sooner than it was.

IMHO NASA should be leaving near earth orbiting to commercial operators and looking outwards. A manned trip to Mars should be the long term goal...we have spent too long just hanging about just outside our atmosphere and I think humankind as a whole needs to start looking outwards towards the stars and to seriously start a new era of space exploration.

[Twa Cairpets]

NASA absolutely failed to have saftey as the number one priority and these poor souls paid the price.

The whole space shuttle programme was pretty mis-guided from the start and should have been ended much sooner than it was.

IMHO NASA should be leaving near earth orbiting to commercial operators and looking outwards. A manned trip to Mars should be the long term goal...we have spent too long just hanging about just outside our atmosphere and I think humankind as a whole needs to start looking outwards towards the stars and to seriously start a new era of space exploration.

Whilst it would be quite cool and I am entirely for the advancement of science, why exactly would we want to go to Mars? I would have though the immediate needs for areas of research and resource (and indeed exploration) would be directed towards our own planet, renewable energy, oceanography, understanding weather and climate systems etc.

[RyeSloan]

Whilst it would be quite cool and I am entirely for the advancement of science, why exactly would we want to go to Mars? I would have though the immediate needs for areas of research and resource (and indeed exploration) would be directed towards our own planet, renewable energy, oceanography, understanding weather and climate systems etc.

I agree there is a lot to learn about our own planet but is that really the remit of NASA and other space agencies?

The advancement of space science has allowed other private and government backed bodies to ‘easily’ put instrumentation into orbit and indeed there is a rapidly growing ability to track and trace carbon emissions, forest density etc etc because of this.

The benefits of man going to Mars are substantial, not least the impact in the human psyche..for a world lost in the vastness of space we are extremely, almost entirely inwards focussed. I can think of no better way of creating a genuine ‘one world’ approach to life than to force humans to realise that earth is not the centre of the universe.

There are multiple other potential technological benefits of attempting to go to Mars but in the end the destination and how we get there is maybe not as important compared to how it would define humans natural desire to explore and colonise, we will need to leave earth one day (sooner rather than later according to some!) so why not set out to achieve that first step now?

[magpie1892]

Whilst it would be quite cool and I am entirely for the advancement of science, why exactly would we want to go to Mars? I would have though the immediate needs for areas of research and resource (and indeed exploration) would be directed towards our own planet, renewable energy, oceanography, understanding weather and climate systems etc.

I'm from the school of thought that thinks the immediate area for examination is to stop and, hopefully, reverse population growth on Earth. There's plenty room (not in Europe though) right now, but resources...?

[Mibbes Aye]

Wow on a thread with an OP a thread about the Challenger disaster and what impact it may have had you post this.

Hey, I was only responding to someone who was responding to someone else who was respnding to the OP. The conversation had shifted by the time I got to it :cool2:



“Zealot’s agenda”…..”a public sector savaged to the bone by cuts”

Emotive language for sure but really it is reflective of reality?

I think so :agree:. But it's not just me. In recent days we've had the outgoing head of the CBI articulating his sense that the cuts are driven by ideology and we've had George Soros (who knows his way around the free market) offering similar criticism. It's a rum do when even the CBI are taking the Tories to task for the damage they're doing to the public sector....


Also you seem to be alluding that our national government is looking to sweep aside health and safety rules to allow increased profits? When you consider European safety and health legislation do you think they could do this even if they wanted to?
I wholeheartedly agree - much of our health and safety regulation is protected by our membership of the EU. It's not stopped Cameron grandstanding to the Tory right about 'getting back our sovereignty' and ending the 'meddling' by Brussels.

But if you read my post, you'll have noted I was talking about how governments inform cultures. And a government that describes health and safety legislation as a burden helps set a culture where those who skirt around the edges of the legislation, or flout it completely, feel they have licence to continue. And a government which is cutting the budget for those who enforce safe working conditions for people by 35% is simply dodging the responsibility of a fight in Europe - it's craven and cowardly in many respects.


Is it not a fact that a lot of SME’s are struggling with the huge amount of bureaucracy that Health and Safety rules (amongst others) has created and that a review of this burden would be welcomed by most and that you actually have no idea what so ever what changes may be put forward nor if those changes would impact the workers health and safety.

I don't think it's a fact at all. The legislation serves one purpose - to protect workers and the public. Why shouldn't that be the first priority for any employer?

As for what changes are being put forward, I'll refer you back to the 35% cuts and the increasing use of 'self-regulation', which obviously was such a success in international banking, say.....


It's surely not overly sophisticated to also point out that workers tend to be a companies biggest asset so even in a free market, and particularly a knowledge based one like the UK’s, it makes sense to ensure they can complete their jobs in a safe environment thus allowing them to continue working and to continue generating profits for the company that employs them?

I would like to think that was the case but sadly the history of investigations into incidents which brought harm to people in workplaces is a litany of corners being cut,checks not made to 'get the job done' and ensure costs are kept to a minimum.

[allmodcons]

I'm from the school of thought that thinks the immediate area for examination is to stop and, hopefully, reverse population growth on Earth. There's plenty room (not in Europe though) right now, but resources...?

:agree:Reminds of the classic Marvin Gaye song 'Inner City Blues'.

'Rockets, moonshots, spend it on the have nots'.

Recorded in 1971 and we still haven't learned a thing!!!

[RyeSloan]

Hey, I was only responding to someone who was responding to someone else who was respnding to the OP. The conversation had shifted by the time I got to it :cool2:




I think so :agree:. But it's not just me. In recent days we've had the outgoing head of the CBI articulating his sense that the cuts are driven by ideology and we've had George Soros (who knows his way around the free market) offering similar criticism. It's a rum do when even the CBI are taking the Tories to task for the damage they're doing to the public sector....


I wholeheartedly agree - much of our health and safety regulation is protected by our membership of the EU. It's not stopped Cameron grandstanding to the Tory right about 'getting back our sovereignty' and ending the 'meddling' by Brussels.

But if you read my post, you'll have noted I was talking about how governments inform cultures. And a government that describes health and safety legislation as a burden helps set a culture where those who skirt around the edges of the legislation, or flout it completely, feel they have licence to continue. And a government which is cutting the budget for those who enforce safe working conditions for people by 35% is simply dodging the responsibility of a fight in Europe - it's craven and cowardly in many respects.



I don't think it's a fact at all. The legislation serves one purpose - to protect workers and the public. Why shouldn't that be the first priority for any employer?

As for what changes are being put forward, I'll refer you back to the 35% cuts and the increasing use of 'self-regulation', which obviously was such a success in international banking, say.....



I would like to think that was the case but sadly the history of investigations into incidents which brought harm to people in workplaces is a litany of corners being cut,checks not made to 'get the job done' and ensure costs are kept to a minimum.

I didn't read the CBI comment entirely like that and he was certainly strongly in support of deficit reduction and boosting private sector growth...the clearest stated aims of the coalition. He voiced a number of concerns on how they were going about that which is fair enough.

As for Soros...hmm he stated he did not have in depth knowledge of the UK economy and agreed that the coalition may well have been right embarking on it [deficit reduction]. He also stated that Labours 'consumption' stimulus calls were wrong and that the main flaw in the coalition’s plans were their lack of clarity on plans for growth. I have posted here before that this is the key and that increasing the UK competitive advantage in a global market will be the real driver to future prosperity. Soros clearly believe this too so he is hardly calling for a change in government direction, I read it as cautious welcome for first steps but a call to action on just how the government was planning to increase private sector growth going forward.

As for HSE: OK so you don't think that SME's face a significant compliance burden. I think a lot of them would disagree with you.

I actually believe the Tories are right to state that there is over regulation in certian areas, they might not say it how you want to hear it but hey ho. However I also believe that in the end the regulation and compliance requirements will continue to grow so their intentions will not match the reality....I'm sure Labour said the same when coming to power then busily spent the next 12 years heaping red tape upon red tape..QUICK LINK (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1322860/Blairs-red-tape-hurting-British-firms.html)

The 'self regulation' you talk about is actually referring to independent audits being completed and thus giving a firm exemption from HSE inspections. As long as the auditing firms comply to appropriate standards this would seem sensible enough to me...the firms pay for the inspection instead of central government funding. Of course the change would need to be monitored and implemented correctly but just because there is a 35% cut and a change in the regulatory regime doesn't necessarily mean that things will be worse.

You seem forever stuck in the world where it's not how well something works but how much you spend on it that matters.

Finally we can agree on one thing though, I do think that the health and safety of workers should be an employers first priority. I think that a lot of companies follow this through for the reasons we have both stated but I am in no doubt some won't so there needs to be effective regulation and enforcement. I suppose the argument lies as to what and how "effective" is.

[Phil D. Rolls]

:agree:Reminds of the classic Marvin Gaye song 'Inner City Blues'.

'Rockets, moonshots, spend it on the have nots'.

Recorded in 1971 and we still haven't learned a thing!!!

I dunno about that, I've learned a lot more than Marvin has in the last 30 years. :greengrin