Where does the buck stop?

After death, what is correct response?

"Corbett has shown a rare quality - a sense of honour" - The Sun

"Gerald Corbett honourably tenders his resignation" - The Daily Mail

"An honourable decision at a time when the currency of accepting responsibility has been severely devalued - Kevin Keegan apart" - The Guardian.

And that is the verdict of Her Majesty's press.

Gerald Corbett: Resigned on principle

Two days after another rail crash which killed four people, who could have predicted that the boss of the company which - it seems- is at fault could have had such a ringing endorsement.

Gerald Corbett offered his resignation to the Railtrack board "as a matter of principle". The board did not accept it, deciding it wanted Corbett in place to sort out the railways.

But it was Corbett's offer that counted. As the Guardian suggested, people rarely resign when things go wrong nowadays.

Lord Carrington: Last of a line?

Politicians who fall on their sword have shown themselves to be a dying breed.

When Argentina invaded the Falklands Islands in 1981, the then foreign secretary Lord Carrington resigned because he should have seen it coming.

But since then, and despite dozens of major events such as the poll tax, BSE, Black Wednesday, the Iraqi supergun, the Dome, you would be hard put to find a minister who had "done the honourable thing".

The number who have resigned after revelations about their personal or business affairs is, of course, much much higher.

The heat in the kitchen

Many of the comments concerning Corbett's resignation seem to reflect a shifting public attitude; away from "Take responsibility and get out!" towards "Take responsibility and sort it out!"

Don Foster, the Liberal Democrats' environment spokesman, told the BBC that "disliking the heat doesn't always justify leaving the kitchen, especially when there's a large mess to be cleared up".

The Poll Tax Riots in London in 1990

When lives have been lost, though, it is a natural and understandable reaction of victims' families that someone should carry the can.

If the boss of a company responsible for people's deaths refused calls to resign, that would doubtless appear as insensitive, even arrogant.

But on the other hand, many victims' families will feel that the mere loss of a job is not an adequate response. They will want to see legal action.

Iain Philpott, the vice-chairman of safety pressure group Disaster Action, says the only way to make safety a priority is to fast-track legislation making corporate manslaughter an offence.

"I don't think companies in the UK take safety seriously enough. Only one - BP - has a statement about safety in their mission statement.

"Until we have a legal system that can impose penalties and punitive damages on companies that fail to act properly, we are going to continue to see accidents such as the Hatfield crash."

Consultation

The government unveiled proposals for a new offence of corporate killing last May, which won cross-party support.

But the proposals are still at the consultation stage, and so will not make the legislative agenda until after the next general election.

The difficulty in bringing such charges has long been recognised. Prosecutions following the 1987 Zeebrugge ferry disaster- in which 187 people died - and the 1997 Southall rail disaster - in which seven died - both failed.

"More than 1,000 people have died in public transport disasters in the past decade, and nothing has happened to improve safety that I can see. Trying to educate companies has completely failed - the only way we can do this is by law," Mr Philpott says.

Because, he says, at the moment the worst that is likely to happen to company directors is that they face calls that they should resign.

"I think that's unacceptable," he said.