Tuesday, January 12, 2010

More damned lies ...The Torygraph & Hate on Sunday


Why on earth do we buy such rubbish “newspapers”? Recently I castigated the Sunday Times for fiddling stats over public sector pay. Yesterday the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH - I declare an interest that I am a member) pointed out that the Sunday Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday had deliberately told their readers porkies about an important health & safety story.

They had wrongly suggested that IOSH advised firms not to grit pavements outside the workplace because they could be sued. This was not IOSH advice but that of well known private legal and employment law advisors “Croner” who like nearly all “legal experts” know a possible cost of everything but the value of nothing.

In fact IOSH even told the Torygraph that their advice was that companies should grit outside of property boundaries.

However the chance to slag off ‘elf and safety” was too strong so they decided to publish deliberate untruths about this pretty important and topical subject.

Don’t they realise that people will probably have been hurt and injured because they have frightened companies out of doing the decent thing? They have the gall to claim there is a broken society!

(Photo is the new brand image for the Sunday Torygraph and Hate On Sunday)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Neil
Calling people liars isn't really on you know. I accept that this is what you generally think and do - which is a shame. But there you go.

Didn't you write this?

John Gray said...

Hi Anon
I think so – the difference here is that the Torygraph deliberately published blatant and dangerous untruths - ergo they told lies...they are liars. It’s not lightly made and not pleasant but read the stuff and tell me how have I got it wrong?

Anonymous said...

Deciding whether to grit beyond the boundaries of their property needs to be carefully considered by companies. If access to the premises is covered in ice, companies may choose to grit the access to help their staff and visitors arrive and leave safely, even though it’s not their property. However, in this instance, if they failed to grit the surface properly and someone had an accident as a result, then they could incur some liability.

This first paragraph does suggest that companies could be sued doesn't it?

John Gray said...

Hi Anon

Selective selection or what...? The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (unless IOSH are telling porkies of course).

Do you really want our press to act is such a disgraceful way?

"The Sunday Telegraph stated that, “in guidance to its members”, IOSH said: “When clearing snow and ice, it is probably worth stopping at the boundaries of the property under your control” and that clearing a public path “can lead to an action for damages against the company, eg if members of the public, assuming that the area is still clear of ice and thus safe to walk on, slip and injure themselves."

This is not the IOSH position on gritting public areas. Neither has IOSH issued this as guidance. The words are, in fact, taken from a Croner contribution to the “Just Ask” column of SHP magazine, in February of last year.

We were contacted by The Sunday Telegraph about the story on the afternoon of Friday 8 January and offered a detailed comment from our Policy & Technical Director Richard Jones:

“Deciding whether to grit beyond the boundaries of their property needs to be carefully considered by companies. If access to the premises is covered in ice, companies may choose to grit the access to help their staff and visitors arrive and leave safely, even though it’s not their property. However, in this instance, if they failed to grit the surface properly and someone had an accident as a result, then they could incur some liability.

“As a general rule, though, it’s sensible for firms to consider the risks and take reasonable steps to prevent accidents from happening. If this means gritting outside the boundaries of your workplace, then it’s better to do that than to have people slipping over or involved in car crashes on your doorstep.”

In other words, our position is to encourage businesses to be a good employer and neighbour by gritting beyond property boundaries and to make sure that the task is carried out thoroughly.

This comment was ignored by The Sunday Telegraph and the wording from the Croner article used instead and attributed to IOSH. This was done without the knowledge of our Media team, with no follow up check being made".