First a bunch of idiots come up with all these ludicrous so called H&S regulations that anyone with one brain cell would laugh at, and now they are forming a 'watchdog' to regulate these inane regulations!! yes the inmates really are running the asylum, if it wasn't so bloody sad it would be laughable, what an absolute mess the country is in.

John Korn, North Bay, Canada

All Brown needs to do is regulate the "No win no fee culture" this in itself is the reason that we as a nation have stooped to such ridiculous practices as labeling nuts with "may contain nuts"

Steve Grady, St Helens, uk

this sounds useful, if only because it raises the absurdity of the 'cotton wool' approach. The key thing is PROBABILITY - how likely is it that a conker will hurt someone, how likely is it that a hanging basket will fall on someone's head. If the risk is low, then the 'issue' is not relevant.

Hopefully it will get rid of the amusing paradox where we are 'advised to protect us' when in reality, it is - as mentioned in one of the other posts - to cover corporate arses.

richard sullivan, Chislehurst, Kent

It really needs an act of parliamnet to allow for a 'commonsense approach' as proof of due diligence in these cases. Currently the law seems to favour speculative claims.

Bill, Yeovil, UK

Gloucestershire's cheese rolling has never been "banned". It was cancelled a couple of years ago because the first aiders, who are members of a specialist search and rescue team, had to go abroad to help in the aftermath of an earthquake. Without first aider, the organisers themselves thought it wasn't safe to go ahead. Get your facts straight!

Richard, Gloucester,

Perhaps the Watchdog could challenge some of the worst Health and Safety rulings by appealing on behalf of the "victims" under the Human Rights Act ?

With any luck this would bring both pieces of legislation into such disrepute that they would both be repealed.

John , Warwick, England

How reassuring that they will be reporting to Brown personally!

p phillips, coventry,

Gordon Brown's record of intending to do something but then following through and actually carrying it out is poor. Look at the number of U-turns he has made recently on drinking laws, organ donation, lost pensions and casinos. Just because he has set up a risk assessment watchdog does not mean that he can do anything about it or change the mindset of the thousands of risk advisors who invented these wacky rules in the first place.

Khaled Shivji, London,

Have they never heard of King Canute, They have no chance.

Johnny Norfolk, Mileham Norfolk, GB

A "watchdog" to restore Britain’s spirit of adventure? A state body to reduce interference by state bodies? I wonder why I'm not convinced....

Richard, Cambridge,

Very interesting comment from James in Spain!
I started teaching in 1975 after having taken my B.Ed degree. I also had life experience and a degree from the USA. I could have gone into a public ( private) school without the shortened course B.Ed I stayed on to do, but I realised I knew nothing about teaching or young children. So I went to college to learn - a Catholic one, as it happened - after all, I was there to learn. It was the best thing I ever did. In my school, the year before I joined it, scale 2s were being given out if you were breathing. It tightened up with a clang the minute I joined the profession. I hit the top of scale 1 within a very few years. But I saw my job as teaching and didn't want promotion, which would mean I was out of the classroom - the very reason I wanted to teach.
I was very lucky: I could always afford my integrity - even if I may not be able to spell integrity!
I stayed at my first school for 28 years and then retired. Lucky them and me. I loved i

Carlyle, Croydon, U.K.

I started my school teaching career in the 60's and on the first day the deputy head called me into his office to ask what sport I had some experience with and if I had a clean driving licence. After my reply I was duly told that I would be coaching the Under-14 C team cricket twice a week, driving the school minibus to other schools for matches, and for good measure assisting with Duke of Edinburgh Award training and weekend camps in distant National Parks. There was a vacancy on the school health committee meeting once a week and would I be interested in that? The deputy referred to it, mockingly, as the CMA ('Cover My Arse') committee. I declined. On reflection I shouldn't have bothered with sports and taking risks with children in the hills and instead stuck to discussing sensible things surrounded by sensible people at a table. Thirty years on my colleagues still in the profession are managed by head teachers and senior management mandarins who took the sensible promotion path early on, going on courses, attending conferences and being on numerous school committees, impressing schools governors, inspectors and parents associations that they had the paper qualifications and safe hands to serve best the interests of children. They are advised by vanguards of health and safety officials, risk assessment experts, counsellors, lawyers, who knows. It's a new industry, and suffer the employment figures if anyone should advocate that much of what it 'produces' could be replaced by common sense and experience in the school of occasional hard knocks. As for children learning to make judgements about the trajectory of a conker on the end of a string, capsizing in a sailing dinghy, spending a night in a mountain hut without running water, mains electricity and gas, what child needs those experiences compared to multi-tasking with computers, mobile phones, and with whatever is economically and socially relevant in a safe environment? An exaggeration, of course, but I believe children were better served and made the happier by that deputy head's management approach thirty years ago than many in the child welfare industry who 'CMA' today.

James , Olvera, Spain

Thank God for that! Common Sense at last. Phew!

Steve Grady, St Helens, uk

NuLabours knee-jerk reaction to any problem appears to be we'll 'set up a quango' to find out what to do! Maybe I'm growing cynical but to me the majority of these quangos are totally unecessary and are merely used as delaying tactics to make the government look as though they are actually doing something about a problem. MPs appear to have lost all common-sense, as pointed out in this article "There will be disappointment that Mr Brown’s response to such killjoy acts is not to halve the number of health and safety officials or revise the hundreds of regulations introduced under this Labour Government." Disappointment is an undersatement, not only could he have saved time by doing this but also a lot of tax-payers money, then of course Brown would have to admit they got it wrong in the first place, as we know, NuLabour does not admit to mistakes.

Les, Southport, England (a country, not a state! )