57-year-old Linda Langford of Tipton in the West Midlands has been ordered to remove two garden gnomes from outside her flat because they are deemed to present a fire hazard. She’s also been ordered to remove her doormat and a welcome plaque.

Standing six inches tall and simply bristling with menace, garden gnomes seem to be the latest figures to be branded a health and safety hazard by our ever-growing secret army of pen pushers.

Too right too. Most of us at Third Age are too afraid to go out at night, petrified we’ll end up being the latest victims of these colourful and disarmlingly benign predators.

Is there one amongst us who has not been bullied or threatened at some point in their lives by these apparently cheerful monsters. Is there one here present who would not give his eye teeth to see these vermin removed from our land for good.

And when we’re rid of those we can set about ridding ourselves of bird tables, women with prams, road furniture, shopping trolleys, people in wheelchairs and anything else that does or doesn’t move and that could one day fall foul of health and safety regulators.

Better idea. Let’s ban everything. Then when there’s absolutely nothing left that could possibly cause harm or offence, let’s then get rid of the health and safety regulators so we can get back to some kind of sanity in this country.

We live in a country in which we can’t bang up young hooligans because it might cause them inconvenience, can’t repatriate illegal immigrants because it’s against their human rights, and yet we want to ban anything that doesn’t meet with the approval of the do-gooders!