No sympathy please, we're British

Meanwhile, Richard Littlejohn of the same paper clearly couldn't give a toss about the whole episode. Well, of course not, they don't even speak English, do they?

I discovered this week that twice as many men have died in accidents on British building sites since 2001 as have been killed in action in Afghanistan. But you won't be seeing a Panorama special on them any day soon.
Unlike the Chilean miners, there won't be any movies made about these unfortunate construction workers, nor any book deals or newspaper serialisations.

Somehow, I don't think Richard's worries about the plight of British construction workers will manifest themselves in action. It would be interesting to find out about the ethnic composition of these victims, presumably of poor working practices, given the preponderance of foreign nationals in the British construction industry, and Littlejohn's well-known pleasant disposition towards immigrants.

According to Littlejohn, they wouldn't have stood a prayer in this country anyway.

Call me callous, but I couldn't help wondering what would have happened if 33 men had been trapped down one of our few remaining British mines.
Under our modern elf 'n' safety culture, the emergency services are actively discouraged from risking their own lives to save others.

Now, working as I do on the railway, an industry that historically has had a shockingly high rate of deaths among workers, I can tell Richard that "elf'n'safety" culture is primarily directed towards preventing accidents. Clearly the best way of saving people trapped down a mine is not to have them in the position to be trapped in the first place.

But of course, Littlejohn isn't with us for reasoned analysis, just the usual knee-jerk reactions. After all, if he really cared about people dying needlessly in the UK, he would be sounding off about the 2,500 people killed on Britain's roads annually, in a downward trend coinciding with the increase on Britain's roads of speed cameras. Instead of spouting rubbish like this.