POPPY SELLERS BANNED FROM USING PINS

Volunteers are also forbidden to shake their collecting tins because this might be seen as harassment, according to the latest guidelines.

Last night poppy sellers and veteran soldiers joined forces to condemn the move, with many branding it "offensive".

Shaun Rusling, of the National Gulf Veterans and Families' Association, said: "It is bureacracy gone mad. Obviously you shouldn't be sticking pins into people but I hope it doesn't encourage people not to buy poppies because that would be a tragedy."

Angela Manners, Poppy Appeal organiser in Lyme Regis, Dorset, said the bizarre ruling came in an instruction from their HQ. She said: "It's madness. It is because people are very quick now to sue. Just a slight prick and they would claim.

"Of course I agree children should not have pins and we give them stickers instead. Older people can still have pins but we have to pass them over in a packet."

But a Royal British Legion spokeswoman denied the appeal's 300,000 volunteers had been ordered by "head office" not to pin poppies on. She said: "We don't issue orders. We just advise. It is purely down to the individual." She added it is illegal for all charity workers to shake fund-raising tins.

With just a week to go until Armistice Day, research shows that more than 85 per cent of Britons plan to take part in the two-minute silence on November 11. A poll on behalf of The Royal British Legion also found that the silence, in memory of the human cost of war, is still "overwhelmingly" relevant to today's young people.