IMAGINE a place where public parks are empty expanses of green space, stripped of all fun and adventure. Where ponds are filled in, ancient trees hacked back and playgrounds closed down.

According to shadow home affairs spokesman David Davis, it shouldn't be too much of an effort to picture this nightmarish vision. He says it's already here, and Britain's £10 billion a year compensation culture is to blame.

Since Labour adopted the Human Rights Act, claims Mr Davis, there has been at least one local authority that has spent more on dealing with damages claims from pedestrians who have fallen over than on repairing pavements.

Nor was the Princess Diana fountain debacle a one-off - other water features and public art, boating lakes and even festivals and markets were considered "too risky", said Mr Davis, who spoke of conkers being swept up each morning before children could kill each other with them.

Now I've never seen conker-sweepers at work, although there was a small lake for model boats near my home that was shut down several years ago - although it was promptly filled in with sand, swings, slides, see-saws and so on, simply because it was thought it would be better used as a playground (an accurate assumption as it has since transpired).

So, is the so-called compensation culture an "urban myth", as the Law Society says; or is it really a blight on society, costing schools £200 million and hospitals nearer £500 million a year, as Mr Davis insists?

The truth, as usual, is probably somewhere in between, but that won't stop the politicians from making capital out of the issue - or the media, come to that.

That's right, the TV, radio and newspapers, just like this one. I'm a big fan of the British press, believing the good it does far outweighs the bad, but I reckon there's room for improvement, in some areas at least.

For example, certain papers keep banging on about speed cameras, perpetuating the myth that they're purely fund-raisers and "the people" are against them. Would they have the "nanny state" take them all down perhaps, and then explain the subsequent increase in the already unacceptable carnage on our roads?

And is it any wonder that some teachers are reluctant to take school parties on field trips, or heads ban games of "British Bulldog", when they know the same commentators who bang on about the good old days, when kids could poke each other with sticks and swing from trees to their hearts' content, would jump on them with a vengeance should the slightest thing ever go wrong?

Of course, it is only right that people whose lives have been blighted by someone else's neglect should have access to compensation. There is such a thing as a duty of care. If you send your children to a funfair you should be able to assume that the rides have been rigorously checked and maintained.

One thing is for sure: without rules, regulations, strict policing and severe penalties, there will always be unscrupulous characters that will quite happily cut corners in favour of a fast buck - and someone will get hurt, or worse.

And it's all very well for Fleet Street's finest to bang on in their rose-tinted-specs jumpers-for-goalposts way about "political correctness gone mad", but they're not the ones who have to pick up the pieces.

In the days when Britain had a coal industry, my dad (and his dad, and so on) used to work down the mines. I remember them telling me about the poor chap who used to go down the shaft with a spoon to scrape up what remained of his unfortunate work-mates whenever something went wrong. Sitting behind a desk, backside plonked firmly on a high horse, certainly beats that for a game of soldiers.