Further I agree that getting rid of the statutory basis for liability would short-change workers – though I would stress the uncertainty of it rather than the institutional bias. I’ve haven’t seen too much evidence of such bias in recent appellate decisions – though it is off the point you are making I submit that the bias is probably more perceived than actual. But I can’t pretend I know much about industrial accident law so I could well be wrong.

On your main point I think we shall just have to wait and see. His comments would certainly serve as a legitimising veil for undermining H&S, but I think the public are so anti-H&S in its more ridiculous forms that it probably doesn’t need much legitimation – a point I think is within your analysis of the populist element of the speech.

As a coda, I’d be fairly surprised if much of the legislation isn’t in response to EC directives, so any curtailment may be necessarily fairly limited.

My concern is that by unleashing this review he is unwittingly legitimising the development of anti-worker institutions and that a string of developments will occur over which he or his successors has little control. In respect specifically of any attack on the HSE, I would consider this an attack on an institution which I (as a natural leftie to youtr natural conservative) would define as one of the key post-war concessions of captalism to labour; it is genuinely an organisation, peopled as it is by people who’ve actually worked in industry/public serves etc., which defends the interests of workers. This is partly why it is so reviled.

(I should add my own declaration of interest here. I am one of the thousands of nurses unable to work in their chosen trade because of occupational injury, and one of thousands who might have been spare quite a lot of physical pain if employer responsbilities for lifting had been in place in the 1980s). I am of course fortunate enough to be able to earn my living a different way now).

Yes, you are right about the back up of common law, but I think having to rely on that (and the instiutionally biased legal minefield that goes with it) is short changing workers.

And yes, I hope I’m overreacting too, but the sense I get from the speech, and the way it is structured, is that the use of the argument (justified in may ways) about the broader issues of societal risk aversion and litigation culture is a real Trojan horse for the introduction of materially regressive measures in the really important bits of H&S.

Even if Cameron were to remove the Act you mentioned then employer’s still have a common law duty to prevent “foreseeable” harm “caused” by their actions. Both these concepts are somewhat nebulous, or at least extremely complicated, even to the lawyer. So workers wouldn’t be left without protection and employers without responsibilities, but they would be rather less defined than they are now – which isn’t really good for anyone. I doubt they would dare to go so far as widespread revision of the common law to reduce duties – you would sound slightly mad arguing that employers don’t have a duty of reasonable care to their employees.

I hope Cameron’s speech isn’t as disingenuous as you purport, though of course it very well could be. Part of the problem I experience as a natural Conservative is assessing Cameron’s true intentions. We as yet don’t know the answer as to whether judging him by the standards of the last Tory governments is fair, or whether he constitutes, in some ways, a signficant progression from the ideological horrors of Thatcherism.