The British government continues to be the perfect reverse-indicator of good advice to business.

Its latest advertisements point out that anyone not employing someone with mental problems would not have employed Florence Nightingale, a pioneer of health management.

Fair enough ...except that most hospitals in Britain are now owned and run by that same government, and it is unlikely that any of them would have employed the prickly, outspoken Miss Nightingale.

Private enterprise, as always in a far more exposed legal position than the public sector, would be even more badly advised to employ her.

This is not a reflection on Miss Nightingale herself, but on the laws of the very same government urging us to employ people like her.

Any entrepreneur liberal enough to employ someone with mental problems remains wholly responsible for the safety of that person and for the full legal consequences of all their employee’s actions. Far from lightening the legal liabilities on employers, the government has tightened the law, and, if the entrepreneur takes the government’s advice and gets into trouble as a result, the government will – as usual – not lift a finger to help.