Abdul As Salam, 26, a pirate from the coastal town of Hobyo, was in despair last week after his boat was impounded by local officials for the third time in six months – this time because the ship’s propeller was not sufficiently shielded to prevent harm to sea mammals. ‘Last time they said the paint on my boat had too much lead in it, and I had to spend a month stripping it and repainting it, but every time they find a new excuse to stop me working.’

Other pirates are frustrated at the amount of paperwork required. Mohammed, also from Hobyo, explained that before he could go to sea, he needed to pass courses in safe rocket propelled grenade handling, water awareness safety course, time management at sea, accounts and bookkeeping introductory level, as well as providing evidence that he had full personal liability insurance.

But even with the correct paperwork Mohammed still landed up in trouble. ‘I was called in for an investigation. They spent six hours going over my boat, and caused me no end of grief over my machete. Apparently I shouldn’t use the same machete for severing the hands of uncooperative hostages and mutinous pirate crew that I use for making my sandwiches. They insisted that I stay in port until I had either two different machetes, or two different coloured and labelled chopping boards and a clear written policy for cleaning the blade after use.’

In addition to the health and safety rules, pirates have already been suffering from international rules banning the taking of undersized ships. Abdul reminisces – ‘I remember when the seas here were full of super tankers. Now, we’re lucky to get the odd lost German couple on a yacht, and we’re not even allowed to catch them any more!’

‘We’d all heard the rumours that troops were being sent to the frontline without adequate equipment,’ said a spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive, ‘but if we’d known that soldiers weren’t being provided with the correct style of ergonomic chair or that the temperature in the workplace was so high, we’d have shut the place down in a jiffy. If the Ministry of Defence is serious about protecting our nation’s soldiers, then at the very least it must equip them with desk fans and remove the piles of sandbags all over their bases which are nothing but a trip hazard.’

The report by the HSE uncovered a number of examples of soldiers stationed in Afghanistan having to face unacceptable hazards at work. ‘We witnessed troops being asked to lift cases of ammunition without proper manual lifting training and others being cooped up for hours in tanks which admit barely any natural light. They even had the wrong coloured plasters in the first aid box. And coming under heavy enemy fire in an exposed area is no excuse for disregarding an employee’s statutory right to a 15-minute break every four hours.’

‘The conditions in which these servicemen and women are being asked to work flout all kinds of regulations,’ continued the HSE spokesman. ‘It boggles the mind to think that every day they work in an environment where they can’t even be sure that their remaining windows will be cleaned on a weekly basis.’

The Ministry of Defence has insisted that it is winning the war on dangers in the workplace. ‘And we’ve made real progress raising morale among our troops in Afghanistan,’ added Mr Hammond. ‘There are so many more promotion opportunities since we listened to the staff survey feedback that managers and senior leaders should make themselves much more visible in the workplace.’

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Tabloid columnists were up in arms today after battalions of overzealous health and safety officials – dubbed ‘Health and Safety Nazis’ - were seen marching across the Polish border wearing hard hats and high-visibility jackets, and armed to the teeth with clipboards and pens.

‘Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said Richard Littlejohn today. ‘Those Health and Safety Nazis had been getting too big for their steel toe-capped, ankle-supporting boots for too long now. In fact I’m surprised an invasion took them so long, but then I suppose they had all those risk assessments to complete. Who do they think are going round imposing their twisted world view on people? If I didn’t detest the very concept, I’d say this was a flagrant abuse of human rights.’

According to the Daily Mail, Poles had watched anxiously for days as ranks of Health and Safety Nazis had massed along the border. Vehicles reversed into position beeping to warn bystanders of the approaching hazard, while troops manoeuvred heavy equipment by keeping their backs straight, bending their knees and letting their thighs take the strain. At intervals lookouts were stationed on ladders, a fellow officer standing on the lowest rung to provide a safe and secure base at all times.

‘God knows what those killjoys will do,’ continued Littlejohn. ‘They won’t be happy until there are cones around every trip hazard and ‘Slippery when wet’ signs beside all the lakes. I wouldn’t rule out an aerial bombardment of the country with educational leaflets, but not before advance forces have laid out ‘Caution – Men working ahead’ signs. This can’t be allowed to go on – we must find a final solution.’

However, by late afternoon jubilant Daily Mail reporters on the scene were claiming the invasion had failed. ‘Countless captured Poles sustained paper cuts from being forced to read the Nazis’ ‘Staying Safe in the Concentration Camps’ propaganda – it was a bloodbath. Soon after the Führer of the invading force, Adolf Jobsworth, retreated to his bunker, put on protective ear muffs and shot himself in the head with a cap gun. It was a victory for common sense.’

‘Clinical trials have shown that continual ingestion of health scare stories can lead to ill health,’ Dr Maggie Penfold told the Daily Mail yesterday. ‘We are recommending that the government sets guidelines for the safe level of health warnings that a person can safely consume as part of a balanced media diet.’

In tests, previously fit and healthy people were exposed to a series of medical stories ranging from the routine ‘Red wine is good/bad for you’ to the extreme ‘Going to the toilet in Yorkshire causes cancer’. After a twenty day period scientists found that the cumulative effect of exposure to health hysteria caused extreme stress and in some cases physical pain, although they have not ruled out the rather hard chairs in the medical centre as being a contributing factor.

The test results cause a fresh dilemma for Heath Secretary Andrew Lansley who will be forced to decide if he should suppress news of any future ‘flu epidemic in the interests of the nation’s health.

Government officials at Whitehall are known to have already commissioned a study to look in to the possibility of a vaccine against the ravages of excessive health alerts, but, whilst trying to appear upbeat, scientists have gently warned that an effective vaccine may be some way off.

‘The problem with developing a vaccine,’ commented top researcher, Dr Chris Barkway, ‘is that we are unable to test its effectiveness on animals as they cannot understand the health warning. OK, there are more intelligent creatures than laboratory rats to experiment on, dogs for instance, but generally they are better comprehending single words like ‘walkies’ or ‘bath’ rather than phrases such as ‘impending World Health Organisation level six bird flu pandemic.’

Meantime, Mr Lansley has been advised not to read the contents of his ministerial red box more than once a week ‘in the interests of health & safety’.

‘When I started out as a hired killer for the UK goverment, I was given a gun and allowed to take out anyone I liked. I fought the real super-villains, who built rocket launching sites inside volcanoes, supertankers that swallowed submarines, space stations and the like – most of them with monorails. On the way, I could have unprotected sex with any woman I fancied. But the assassination of Osama bin Laden shows how frustrating having a license to kill has become.

‘First, the paperwork: all the forms, presidential and prime minister approval. How can I kill evil henchmen when I first have to take a photograph and submit it on a complex web form along with a justification, then wait for three levels or approval? Some of the places I have to go don’t have decent network connectivity!

‘Secondly, the lairs. No volcanoes, no space stations. Run-down compounds in suburban towns with no decent nightlife, and not a monorail in sight! Where is the excitement in killing people in backwater suburbs when you have to walk around once you get there?

‘Finally, the women. It’s not just that that in today’s conflict zones they wear burqas and adultery is punished by stoning – it’s that it’s really hard to get your end up when you know that it’s not just Obama and Cameron watching you on your headcam, but Hilary Clinton is watching too. She keeps giving me instructions to the headset about effective foreplay. I am a spy trying to save the world – I don’t have time for foreplay! It was better when her husband was in charge, believe me!’

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‘It was the stuff of nightmares,’ said Doug Reardon, the duty foreman at the Corex steel foundry near Dudley. ‘We’d just begun work when the guys manning the blast furnaces suddenly vaulted over each other’s backs and mimed being in a car. We didn’t know what was going on.’

One survivor watched TV dance troupe Diversity disappear beneath a tidal wave of super-heated liquid steel. ‘They were popping and locking and then they were gone,’ he said.

Despite the high number of casualties, T-Mobile has insisted that the flashmob was a success. ‘We got a lot of usable footage,’ said their spokesman. ‘We can edit out the screaming and burning.’

More deaths are expected during today’s filming.

Councillors in Walsall have officially declared street corners as designated places of work for prostitutes and therefore banned them from smoking whilst touting for business. Working girls are up in arms at the ruling.

‘It’s mad,’ said streetwalker Janet Brown. ‘In the depths of winter we huddle round the odd fag to keep warm. Now one punter has issued one of the girls with a Fire Marshall high-viz jacket, there’s a first aid box on the wall and a fire exit sign at the end of Smithson Street.’

The girls have  already complained that the working temperature is below the office standard of 16C. However, the council has informed them that this rule does not apply since their ‘area of operation’ is usually the back seat of a Mondeo. Instead, it will carry out a ‘cocking-on’  time and motion study next year.

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One concerned council spokesman highlighted the issue: ‘The fact that these seeds have been falling for centuries without anyone ever being hurt is more down to luck than judgement. Our experts have told us there is a ten million to one chance that a stray seed could take out an eye and that is too great a chance to take.’

‘We’d prefer to impose a 500 metre exclusion zone around each of these vicious freaks of nature but obviously that’s impractical. Instead all Sycamore trees will be taped off with a notice stating: ‘CAUTION: Falling Life Threatening Sycamore Seeds. Hard hats and goggles mandatory’. You can’t be too careful, an you?’

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