Major sound bites

"A free and open society is worth a certain amount of risk," so said John Major, last Conservative Prime Minister, at the Guildhall last night where he was the guest speaker at the Chartered Insurance Institute's dinner and in snappingly good form.

He also pointed out that " if we are to control the liberty of individuals we need more uncertainty than that (by which he meant the current threat levels)".

He went on to inveigh against identity cards and dna databases and to point out that governments, of any party, with large majorities did not have to take as much care with legislation and so many poorly drafted got passed which would be better scrutinised by both sides if the government's majority was small. He admitted to there being" Too much legislation- I accept a degree of mea culpa".

" Simplicities in politics so often backfire,"was his phrase which conjured up all the unintended consequences of knee jerk reactions by politicians to tabloid headlines.

Amongst the guests were his old colleagues,such as Lord Heseltine and Lord David Hunt, the President of the CII. Most interesting was the presence of Charles Clarke, the ex Home Secretary. I wonder where he stands now on identity cards and why politicans out of office make so much sense.

Raising standards at no cost

Standards are useful, but when they cost money then many, who would benefit from understanding them and using them, just don't bother.

If you have business in China you might like to know that just a few days ago we arranged for the Chinese Risk Management Standard which was in the more traditional script used in Hong Kong and Taiwan to be translated into simplified Chinese which is more easily accessible to those who live in mainland China. This translation was carried out in less than 2 days by the staff of Ximco Corporation in Shanghai and we are very grateful for their efforts.

The original Risk Management Standard was developed in 2002 by the Institute of Risk Management, the Association of Insurance and Risk Managers and the National Association for Risk Management in the Public Sector. It has been downloaded over 100,000 times in English and is available in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, Danish,Swedish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese and now in two forms of Chinese. Here is the link to the new simplified Chinese Risk Management Standard. It is available free of charge, as it should be.

Download the Simlified Chinese Risk Management Standard...