Bill Carmichael: Callling time on Clipboard Man

Regular readers of this column will recognise that's the nickname I've given to the sort of petty official who delights in spoiling other people's fun and telling them what to do – usually with a clipboard in hand and quoting some obscure "health and safety" regulations.

Think Warden Hodges in Dad's Army and you won't be far from the truth – although in his modern incarnation he is more likely to utter "it's more than my job's worth" than "don't you know there's a war on?" and "put that ruddy light out!"

The 13 years of Labour government were boom times for Clipboard Man as government ministers saw it as their business to interfere in every tiny aspect of ordinary people's lives, from telling us how to wash our hands to dictating what stories we should read to our children at bedtime.

But, according to reports this week, that could all be about to end.

David Cameron has appointed Margaret Thatcher's former Trade Secretary, Lord Young of Graffham, to conduct a review in an attempt to "lighten or abolish much of the health and safety legislation".

So could Clipboard Man soon be pensioned off to live in fat, index-linked retirement?

If so I, for one, will be sorry to see him go – not least because he has proved a fecund source of stories for this column.

Who could forget, for instance, the pancake race in St Albans where competitors were banned from running, in case they hurt themselves, and had to walk, despite the fact similar races have taken place in Britain for more than 500 years without a single report of a serious injury?

Or the swimming pool in Blackburn that banned the backstroke in case swimmers bumped their heads?

Or the pantomime dame in East Anglia who was banned from throwing sweets into the audience in case one hit someone in the eye?

Or the council in Bristol that tried to ban doormats in case someone tripped over one?

Or the rugby club in Devon that showed a video of a bonfire on November 5 because lighting the real thing involved too much health and safety red tape?

Or a leaflet from Defra that included 26 pages of advice on how to look after a pet cat, including a handy reminder that the animal would need to be fed?

Whenever I detail such cases, I'm accused of perpetrating "health and safety myths" – but I'm afraid they are absolutely true and it is time that such lunacy was consigned to history, even if it means Clipboard Man joining the ranks of the unemployed.

Benefit of doubt

I'VE always suspected that the tax credit schemes introduced by Gordon Brown were little more than hugely complex and expensive money recycling machines.

The Government took large amounts of tax off us and then, using a bureaucratic and labyrinthine system of tax credits, gave us a tiny proportion back – with the rest going on administrative costs.

It was designed to make us all clients of the state and so grateful for Gordon's largesse that we would become loyal Labour voters.

In fact, the system is worse than I thought. Analysis of official statistics by the Policy Exchange think-tank shows that 32 per cent of all benefits paid last year – a total of 53.5bn – was doled out to people on above-average incomes, in tax credits, incapacity benefit and disability allowances.

This is a corruption of the whole idea of the welfare state, which was originally designed as a safety-net to prevent those at the bottom of society from falling into destitution – not as a lifestyle choice by the comparatively well-off.

A far more simpler, cheaper and fairer way is to scrap the whole cumbersome tax credit system and let people in work keep more of the money they earn in the first place.