Here are three words guaranteed to get tempers flaring: health and safety.

This dreaded phrase is now synonymous with pedantic jobsworths, needless bureaucracy and a general lack of common sense.

A retired army major in Ealing was told he cannot enter an Age Concern day centre in Acton he has visited for years unless he has his fitness checked over.

Despite being self-reliant, he must now comply with yet more stifling red tape.

It seems that not even pensioners are allowed to have fun without filling out a form.

Corruption

JUSTICE arrived for Southall swindler Joginder Saroe this week when a court ordered him to surrender assets worth £120,000 to repay the cash he cheated in disability and housing benefit.

As a councillor for Dormers Wells, Saroe should have been a model of upstanding citizenship and honest dealing.Instead, he brazenly pilfered cash from the taxpayer and proved himself a stain on the reputation of Ealing Council.

We place our trust in elected officials, and when they are shown to be corrupt it causes the whole of local politics to be viewed in a more negative light.

Those who abuse the trust we place in them should face the stiffest punishment.