Plastic swords banned from panto,

If you're in the Cornish village of Carnon Downs and encounter a blood-thristy band of sword-wielding pirates, don't worry. The police know all about them.

For while the pirates are only amateur actors from the local panto, they have been ordered to alert the police that they are using weapons - even though the swords are made of nothing more deadly than plastic.

Not only that, but because of health and safety regulations they have had to promise to keep the pretend cutlasses under lock and key when they are not being used.

Carnon Downs Drama Group has also had to promise that it has made adequate safety arrangements for the toy swords and that the person named to the police as being responsible for the 'weapons' accompanies them whenever they are moved.

The swords must be kept in a secure case and stored in a locked room with restricted access.

Elaine Gummow, co-director of the group's annual pantomime, said yesterday that the situation was absurd.

"Our production this year is Robinson Crusoe, or Cornwall's answer To Pirates Of The Caribbean," she said.

"It would be impossible not to stage it without the use of a few swords and cutlasses, as well as the traditional pop-gun which emits nothing more than a flag which says bang.

"It all seems a bit absurd but it is perhaps a sign of the times that health and safety is everywhere.

**Ten years of New Labour with its prying nanny state bullshit, over regulation and micro-fucking-management of every part of our lives has led to this. Have the police forgotten what the hell they are supposed to be doing, which is catching criminals, investigating crime not aiding health & safety nazis.

Roll on that lottery win an I can escape the UK.

New Labour - Tough on plastic swords, tough on the causes of plastic swords.

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