Fire at Grenfell Tower in London

Fatalities reported. Utterly scandalous, given that residents have been complaining about the safety of the building for years, as can be seen in this blog post from last November:

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/kctmo-playing-with-fire/

Just heard a tenant describing a distraught mother with 2 missing kids, it sounds terrible.

also heard someone on the radio suggesting that the cosmetic cladding might have helped the upwards spread of the fire on the outside of the building.

jesus christ.

The standard message in tower block fires is to stay in your flat and let the fire services deal with it - which is apparently good advice if the safety systems work but fatal if they don't.

There's an old Japanese guy stuck at a window for the past five hours apparently, GMB kept showing him..

Terrible terrible reports

Footage is unbelievable. I'm not able to even really look at it too much because being trapped in a night-time fire either alone or with your kids in PJs is just ... literally can't bear to think about it.

Makes me absolutely outraged that a fire this bad can happen when we have decent fire regs and the ability to prevent it. And when residents have been warning about it!

It's a housing crisis and austerity double whammy this: council used refurb as a chance to fit even more homes in there, and sold off the surrounding land so tightly residents were concerned about emergency access. Meanwhile fire service cuts mean fewer safety visits and less effective enforcement. And costs can't have been far from the mind of those postponing the fire regs reviews in the wake of Camberwell. That was on Gavin Barwell's watch, mind.

fire service cuts in london were at boris johnson's behest

Yes, I hope someone buttonholes him about that. Kensington & Chelsea council, figures.

let's not use an entirely preventable tragedy to play politics

Worth following Dawn Foster on Twitter for more on this. It appears the block was remodeled recently to increase the density, leaving one staircase for the entire block. The cladding appears to be flammable and no integrating fire alarm system was put in.

There are reports of people jumping and someone holding a toddler out of a window. What a horrible, grim, preventable disaster.

I'm guessing this is a coincidence of the casual/enraged author, but that blog post reads like a threat, in several places.

baby thrown, and caught, from 9th floor apparently

5-y-o thrown from 6th floor, seems to be okay

i imagine many more did not make it

people need to go to jail over this. this isn't the goddamn 1800s

I'm sure whoever's responsible will be vilified and prosecuted to the same extent as anybody else responsible for multiple deaths

heads will have to roll over this, there has been a fucking criminal level of negligence here. It is like people in social housing are less important than cattle.

I've just driven past it on the way to White City and even though I knew what to expect I still couldn't stop from saying "holy fuck". It's an awful, hideous sight. It's still burning too, flames out of windows about halfway up.

There *must* be arrests here. These people were left to die by fucking Kensington

it's almost as if profit-driven housing policy and years of underinvestment in public services have consequences

i mean, JUST FANCY THAT.

It is like people in social housing are less important than cattle.

More expensive though. I suppose if you can't manage to ship these people as far away from your private tenants as possible, just cram as many as possible into substandard housing as you can get away with.

it doesn't help the situation when you have a Labour mayor who is pro "affordable housing". He doesn't seem to gaf about the state of social housing and aggressive gentrification.

b-but kensington is a bit misleading i think: the people who live in this part of london call it white city, which has very different associations

I keep thinking about Hillsborough and how many parallels there are despite the disasters themselves being completely different.

this is some fucking third-world shit, those responsible need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law

Sorry, I was trying to condemn the council with the fifth-lowest-council-tax and near-wealthiest residents for failing these people more than the area in toto

Council truck at Shepherd's Bush green collecting donations of essentials and clothes

xp Right - both the Big Society and May's half-arsed populism have let them down.

/b-but kensington/ is a bit misleading i think: the people who live in this part of london call it white city, which has very different associations

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JuFvCbwAMOs/WT7IVw7PQOI/AAAAAAAACUM/ZY70LiRCwRQ89ms7AjAWnlgWjYqRbI0OwCLcB/s1600/kensington_map.png

both points reinforced really. this area has significant areas of deprivation while also being v wealthy/Tory. this is utterly horrific.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JuFvCbwAMOs/WT7IVw7PQOI/AAAAAAAACUM/ZY70LiRCwRQ89ms7AjAWnlgWjYqRbI0OwCLcB/s1600/kensington_map.png

The Standard are running an appeal but replies to George 'Keep Britain Austere' Osborne's tweets right now are fractious to say the least.

yes, sorry stet, i wasn't having a go -- the political point you're making is entirely correct

Government have also been pushing back against installing sprinkler systems in tower blocks and care homes, despite fire service advice.

Landlord spent £10million to put cladding to make building look pretty (for surrounding rich) for 300k they could have sprinkler system.

ffs, i feel sick :(

Where are those figures from?

from a UK rapper on twitter admittedly, but evidence suggests even if the figures are wrong the rest is true.

A sprinkler system is unlikely to have helped

How do you work that one out?

If a sprinkler system only saved one solitary life it would have made a difference ffs!

Inflammable cladding obv. preferable.

Ilx is very lucky to have a fire safety expert on the thread tho.

Sprinklers are designed to contain fires not put them out, and they work better in contained areas. This fire looks to have spread primarily through the outside of the building and would have been too severe to be controlled by sprinklers when it came back into the building. The scandal is the cladding and there are also question marks over the effectiveness of the fire doors.

"This fire looks to have spread primarily through the outside of the building and would have been too severe to be controlled by sprinklers"

Nobody knows this for certain at this point, with all due respect.

Of course.

Oh, you just felt like doing a lawyer routine then.

Son Of Dorke

calz step back a second. Kozelek is just laying out some info it seems to me

sorry, but presenting shit opinions as facts is bs. But I am a bit angry atm and will step back for the good of the thread.

Thank you Tracer. Like calzino says it is impossible to be certain of anything at this stage. I'm not trying to present anything as fact, feel free to take me with a pinch of salt.

I'm not an expert by any means but I did work in this area for a couple of years. This is an extremely unusual fire.

Tell you what might have helped, a fucking fire alarm.

I heard a tenant on the radio this morning say that there was no central alarm, her own smoke alarm only went off when she opened her door to see what was happening

I have worked on shitloads of flat refurbs in the north and have never seen one without a fire alarm before. I think even some of the four storey maisonette ones had fire alarms.

Out of interest did you notice if there were alarms in the communal areas as well as individual flats?

the idea that a 24-storey building wouldn't have fire alarms is absolutely horrifying

This seems like the alarms were in the communal areas but not in the indiv flats.

Someone on TV said she left the flat after a friend phoned her to tell her the building was on fire. She did say she heard alarms while getting out.

From my experience a lot of buildings like this are covered by battery operated domestic smoke alarms in the flats and nothing outside them. I believe it's about encouraging people to stay in their flats (which is supposed to be safer than running into a fire in the communal areas). I've always found the lack of a proper alarm bizarre.

I can remember on quite a few jobs in Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield where there were smoke alarm sensors all wired in miic cables to the top in the communal areas. I always assumed there is an alarm panel in every big building. But admittedly I have been out of that game for half a decade now.

And all the flats in Bradford had hard-wired smoke, heat and C02 detectors on a dedicated circuit.

There's going to be a huge fallout from this. It wouldn't surprise me at all if fire safety regulation was changed as a result.

Better be some KingsX level changes here.

I see deregulating house building was item #1 on the "cut red tape" Brexit plan

i'd be shocked if the building complied with fire safety regulation as it is

Nbd flammable cladding affixed w/wood seems fine

ffs! Couldn't they just have give it a lick of paint if it was giving the rich folks nausea?

That is what they did to the dilapidated tower blocks in Hudds before the royal visit.

Not as if regs would make damn all difference if your level of enforcement over there parallels with ours, though we've had occupied apartment complexes vacated and shut down on foot of inspections in the past few years, which is....at least something (if not much comfort to the individual homeowners/renters)

shocked residents in my own building already discussing via email to fast-forward safety measures we've had tabled since a fire-safety inspection (the first ever) last year

we're collectively our own landlord, so literally no one here to look to or blame but us, but even so everything that costs money (as these measures will) always gets put off :(

Knock on wood but at least this is one area of public administration Trump can't really fuck up for us. Horrible news.

i was reading somewhere that the new cladding panels themselves should have been okay, but they might have had non-retardant insulation fitted behind them (residents had complained of coldness in the winter)

in retrospect using kerosene-soaked newspaper as the insulation may have been a mistake

sorry i shouldn't have posted that - sarcasm is my kneejerk response to fury

So many buildings in London have been reclad over the last five years or so that there could be dozens of places that are similarly vulnerable.

My mum lives in a tower block that's recently been reclad but it's definitely high spec insulated and fully rendered on to of the insulation. Also, in Scotland, all rented accommodation, whether privately rented or social housing, needs to have a hard wired smoke and co2 detector but backed up by battery in case the wiring fails. Also all communal areas and front doors to properties have fire doors. Those have been the regs for several years now. I cannot believe this tower was recently refurbished with seemingly flammable materials.

It's really upsetting, all of this.

Brexit of course partly motivated by a wish to avoid these stupid lifesaving measures

https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jan/15/tory-landlord-mps-housing-bill-private-rented

That is the problem when a load of scumbag landlords (in the PLP as well) can vote down housing bills in parliament.

It's important not to politicise this, so if we can all come together to hang this Ian-Gibson-drawn motherfucker, that would be good.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-mays-chief-staff-sat-10620357

Ugh.

the level of failure on so many levels here is just heartbreaking and infuriating and appalling and, more than anything, eminently fucking avoidable

A former Tory housing minister warned MPs against beefing up fire safety regulations, because it could discourage house building, the Mirror reports.

It says that five years after the coroner’s report into the 2009 blaze in Camberwell called for developers refurbishing high-rise blocks to be encouraged to install sprinkler systems, Brandon Lewis told MPs:

"We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government, to market fire sprinkler systems effectively and to encourage their wider installation ...

The cost of fitting a fire sprinkler system may affect house building—something we want to encourage— so we must wait to see what impact that regulation has."

That's their answer to everything, better to have more people in penury because legislating against it would create fewer shit jobs paying a pittance. Better to have more deathtraps than fewer properly constructed, safe houses.

2013: Boris Johnson tells Labour opponent to "Get stuffed" when questioned on Fire Service cuts. Thanks to @angelcakephotos pic.twitter.com/TAR0e2BX1E

— EL4C (@EL4JC) June 14, 2017

it's almost as if there was an opposition party pointing out the problems in real time

as ever, fuck boris johnson

Experts have repeatedly warned that the addition of cladding, which is regularly used to refresh old or ugly buildings, can help spread fire. It can work like a chimney, they have warned, bringing up air that allows it to spread across a building quickly.

_Landlord spent £10million to put cladding to make building look pretty (for surrounding rich) for 300k they could have sprinkler system._

"We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government, to market fire sprinkler systems effectively and to encourage their wider installation .../

This *fucking cunt*. An industry has a responsibility to market lifesaving devices to developers? FUCK OFF.

mission v much not accomplished then xp

stet otm, this belief that the free hand of the market will somehow inevitably lead to safe, secure housebuilding instead of deathtrap slums is fucking delusional

It's a lie though, they actually dont care.

well, yeah

Housing providers are in a position with blocks like these where they are encouraged to consider EWI particularly on non traditional construction blocks and also because of the decent homes standard. Poor energy ratings of uninsulated dwellings, the pressure to be seen to reduce carbon emissions, to increase energy efficiency, to help towards reducing fuel poverty: all these have driven similar refurbishment work all over the country.

"Don't look at us, it wasn't OUR job" is a terrible look when people have just died.

The alternative of demolition and rebuild was not always the viable one. Plus there has in the past been loads of funding available for EWI works.

The worrying thing, having been involved in similar works in the past, is that the company that provided the cladding 'solution' on the grenfell project went into administration straight after the contract completed. And in my experience they don't strike me as a leading light in the industry.

I imagine that the powerful in Kensington will be looking to point fingers at architects and contractors to deflect from what appears to have been utterly disdainful management of the block and its tenants / leaseholders. The grenfell association blog post linked to earlier is tragic.

Given this is effectively a large-scale corporate manslaughter charge I don't think deflecting the blame is really going to work.

The official death toll has now risen to 12.

(xp) I wish I shared your confidence.

twitter account of the editor of "inside housing"

This is what a report into cladding used in a nearby tower which caught fire in August said. Report was kept secret. https://t.co/z0GOVjkNjB pic.twitter.com/RPJTTLj3Y7

— Peter Apps (@PeteApps) June 14, 2017

polystyrene ffs

Sorry I'm not good at links on zing

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/14/disaster-waiting-to-happen-fire-expert-slams-uk-tower-blocks?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

That's proper cowboy spec in that tweet.

Jeremy Corbyn has suggested spending cuts could have contributed to the deadly fire at Grenfell Tower. The Labour leader said “searching questions” need to be asked about what happened at the west London tower block, adding: “If you deny local authorities the funding they need, then there is a price that’s paid.”

very sad and enraging situation.

Tensions erupted in clashes with the police outside the Rugby Portobello trust, which is acting as a centre for dispossessed people.

The road outside the club was packed with people, some in tears and some wailing. A fracas broke out, apparently over a journalist trying to film a distraught woman. Some men moved to protect the woman and, within seconds, a large contingent of police officers were jostling with the crowd amid shouting and screaming.

Watching the news right now and the tower appears to be leaning quite alarmingly. Dunno if it's camera angle or what.

I'm almost certain that's the camera angle...

Def camera angle; was just past and it's straight. Fires still burning though

The intrusive questioning and filming of people in the severest state of shock and grief (looking for missing family, kids etc) by the BBC today is fucking repulsive. A new low even by their own appalling lack of standards :(

how many people lived in the tower? david lammy says he expects "hundreds" of ppl to have died

david lammy otm

This is the richest borough in our country treating its citizens in this way and we should call it what it is. It is corporate manslaughter. That’s what it is. And there should be arrests made, frankly. It is an outrage.

Many of use across the country have been caught up in an election knocking on housing estate doors, travelling up to the top floors of tower blocks, and we know as politicians that the conditions in this country are unacceptable.

We build buildings in the 70s. Those 70s buildings, many of them should be demolished. They have not got easy fire escapes. They have got no sprinklers. It is totally, totally unacceptable in Britain that this is allowed to happen and that people lose their lives in this way. People should be held to account.

simultaneous lammyposting there

Just listened to that on youtube, Lammy totally otm and Nick Robinson a total arsehole who was trying to deny there is any class inequality dimension to this preventable tragedy.

There could have been 400+ people in the tower and the numbers confirmed dead and confirmed safe/in hospital are nowhere near that.

The scale of this is horrific, I read somewhere that there could have been anything between 400-600 people in the flats when the fire started.

average house price in kensington and chelsea is £1,989,412

george osbourne could see the fire from his street

grenfell tower was recently remodelled to cram more residents inside, fire alarms were not properly fitted, cladding was flammable

just free associating here, no class inequality implied, of course

fuck nick robinson now and forever btw

There could have been 400+ people in the tower and the numbers confirmed dead and confirmed safe/in hospital are nowhere near that.

I've been thinking about that too, the fire started on the fourth floor and there were, what, 24 floors? It's chilling and horrific. Theresa May is visiting the site today, I really really really hope people tell her to fuck right off, but I'm sure there isn't the will or spirit to do that right now, but soon I hope there will be.

(xp) Fuck the BBC now and forever.

Meanwhile Theresa May visited the site and managed to avoid meeting any of those affected or volunteers helping. She really is a pathetic human being.

i've been wondering how heavily stage-managed may's visit will be - she'll be terrified, and rightly so, of getting shellacked by the public but the optics of her running it like her election rallies of four punters in a warehouse would be at least as bad

wait, she's already been? ffs

It's like she hates people or something.

better not to have gone at all and made some vague statement about letting the authorities do their focusing on the issues or something

showing up in groucho glasses, having a quick shufti and fucking off again is absolutely the worst thing she could have done

i mean i guess that's become her personal brand now but even still, holy shit

this is a straight-up dereliction of duty by a prime minister who sold herself on being strong and stable

i don't think i was even this furious with david cameron the day after the eu referendum

corbyn set to visit a bit later. as someone in my twitter feed said, the political blame game can't begin a moment too soon.

absolutely

this surely has to be the final nail in theresa may's coffin as pm, and like almost all the other nails, along with the wood and interior lining, she made it for herself

fuck her forevermore, she deserves her epitaph as the worst pm in at least a century

I hope this will lead to massive changes in both policy and attitudes but it's just as likely that safety will be used as an excuse to accelerate estate demolition and gentrification.

"political blame game" sounds horrible in these circumstances but if that if that is what it takes to hasten the process of bringing the guilty parties to account - then fucking bring it on.

it's only horrible if there's not actually clear and simple blame to be laid at the feet of politicians and all signs seem to point to this being an almost inevitable endgame of tory austerity

Osborne was saying they shouldn't abandon austerity yesterday, it is almost like the penny hasn't dropped that this disaster is on him as well.

osborne in 'total cunt' shocker

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCXHKJLXoAECn-d.jpg:large

May being like

https://i.giphy.com/gngO1gmBhS9na.gif

except she's looking around to ensure that no members of the public have managed to sneak up on her

'tis true.

what i do not get is that as despicable a human being she is, does she not have advisors telling her she *cannot* make a visit and not see anyone personally affected by this tragedy? perhaps i should be glad the advisors prob given up.

she's past the point of no return, really - everything she does is a lose/lose

i can't imagine the public will ever forget that in a time of national tragedy, when financial and material support for the people affected by the fire has been flooding in from all over the country, our prime minister was too frightened to even attempt to appear human

more than that, it's an implicit admission that she knows tory policies, and people she has working directly for her, led to this and she doesn't have any kind of plausible response for people looking for answers

just fucking stand down now and spare us all any more of this, it's embarrassing

Yes, she has just installed two of the people bearing the greatest responsibility in the positions closest to her. I think there were four days between Barwell being appointed Chief Of Staff and headlines about him burying fire safety reports. She'd look ridiculous firing him but how can he stay on?

She's right to be frightened. She'd have received the reception she deserves and knows it. Presumably the thinking is that she can't just not turn up if Corbyn is visiting though.

guys, may would totally have met with the victims, there just wasn't enough time to have them vetted first

honestly i think she'd have been better not turning up - better to let jeremy get sole credit for being caring than to roll up like cruella de ville, quickly fuck off before any peasants touch the hem of your garment, and confirm people's worst suspicions about your lack of human feeling

I think it's safe to say she looks ridiculous enough as it is.

The phrase 'not a people person' barely seems adequate.

'not a person' is getting closer

Day two and I'm still boiling about this. If this brings down this malformed government it still won't be enough

public inquiry announced -- which allows them to defer difficult questions and boot some of the discussion down the road -- but i really don't think this is dying down any time soon

just found out my friend T -- who lived in west london for years before she moved to norfolk -- actually scoped grenfell tower out for a possible flat before she decided on portobello, which has freaked both of us out, because i can remember her being quite positive about the flat she saw

yet more damning indictment of austerity's role in this

Grenfell Tower’s residents tried to obtain legal advice over safety concerns but were prevented from doing so due to devastating cuts to legal aid.

Pilgrim Tucker, who has worked with the local campaign organisation Grenfell Action Group, made the damning claim yesterday evening during an emotionally-charged Newsnight.

Having cited a number of alleged structural and maintenance issues with the Kensington tower block, Tucker (pictured bottom right) said: “They [residents] can’t afford lawyers. They tried to get lawyers but because of the legal aid cuts they couldn’t get lawyers.”

https://www.legalcheek.com/2017/06/they-tried-to-get-lawyers-devastating-cuts-to-legal-aid-prevented-grenfell-tower-residents-accessing-advice-over-safety-concerns/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare

First victim named is a Syrian refugee, Mohammed Alhajali. 23 years old. Fled fucking Syria to come to this.

heartbreaking

i've got a feeling we're going to be hearing a lot of stories like that

Buildings types are going into the details in an interesting forum thread: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=2007285

there really are forums for everything huh

good read, stet, thanks for posting

These flats were full of people who have been systematically demonized by the British media and politicians: council tenants, immigrants, refugees etc etc, all the usual hate figures - this, of course, allows RBKC and the like to cram them into substandard housing (barely) maintained by privatized cowboys and chancers, because they have no voice and no champions.

from stet's link (provenance unknown, so take with the usual pinch of salt)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCUA43JXUAAOUgM.jpg:large

Pilgrim Tucker, who has worked with the local campaign organisation Grenfell Action Group, made the damning claim yesterday evening during an emotionally-charged Newsnight.

i watched that on newsnight last night.
emily tried to shut her down several times, but pilgrim just powered through to make her points, in the end, emily gave up and let her go for it.
she was amazing.

I don't ascribe the malice to Maitlis that the internet is. I think she was just worried about it rambling away from what she had been asked to talk about and wasn't really taking in what was happening in front of her. She has been tweeting the result to high hell, for sure.

Of course, this is right next to TVC and the remaining W12 offices, so lots of angry BBC people wanting answers too

It can't be especially safe for the people living in the immediate area either? I'd imagine the dangers from smoke/chemical/asbestos exposure are likely to be huge.

from the graun's liveblog:

Air pollution experts at King’s College London (KCL) have been monitoring the impact of the blaze on air quality but detected only a small rise in particle pollution in nearby Brent on Wednesday morning, carried there by the north-west wind prevailing at the time.

This is because the smoke was lifted high into the air by the heat of the fire and dispersed over a large area before it returned to ground.

Concentrations of pollution rose to 80 microgrammes per cubic metre for half an hour after 7am. But averaged across the day, the level remained well below the 24 hour EU limit of 50μg/m3.

“There was a tiny bit of air pollution, but really tiny,” said Gary Fuller at KCL.

> Of course, this is right next to TVC and the remaining W12 offices

oddly it's visible (i think, it's one of five nearly identical towers) in this documentary filmed in the empty offices next door, and aired on monday (from about 38:00 onwards)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08vfzm0/horizon-2017-cyber-attack-the-day-the-nhs-stopped

the tower looks like something from half-life or cloverfield at the moment, just a charred skeleton. you can see right through it.

it'd look right at home in aleppo

as a 70's building Grenfell almost definitely be full of asbestos and would assume at the peak of the fire it's deadly fibres would have been raining down on everyone in the vicinity and it there will probably be plenty left in the shell of the building now even. Meaning a lot more long-term casualties from this disaster still to come over the decades :(

I see Sadiq Khan has picked up the story about cuts to Legal Aid denying tenants access to the law. Also Corbyn suggesting empty houses - by implication left empty by foreign investors - in RBKC should be requisitioned to re-house victims of the fire. Pressure building on venal, unprincipled cunts everywhere... fingers crossed.

Yes it has been impressive how cuts in services has been channelled in this way rather than the narrative of 'sink estates - please regenerate/cleanse working class people out faster'. That may still be the outcome but the energies have been drawn away from that, for now.

Khan has also talked about an 'interim response' rather than simply an enquiry that is great @ burying things.

Still...kinda wondering what May is playing at not meeting people today. Surely, given her desire to do a deal with the DUP and hang on would mean meeting people and yes getting ripped into - which would've looked bad - but would've at least shown some fight to stay. Astonishing its been 10 months of this withdrawn quiet figure now being destroyed in public.

Someone did post a pic of Thatcher at Hillsborough meeting cops/officials and not people. I don't know if that is the entire truth (probably was) but there is something here that I was wishing for - which was for May to be built like a Thatcher Mk II and to utterly fall on her knees, which could've somehow transmit back to Thatcher and her legacy and perhaps begin to retrospectively wreck it. I never thought any of this would come true - obviously feeling very sad and angry that it has come to pass because of this.

Not one to defend Thatcher but in the string of disasters which seemed to affect Britain on a nearly weekly basis in the late 80s she was a regular visitor to victims in their hospital beds. I don't know how genuine her concern was but she was whole lot more savvy than May in that respect.

Those were 'innocent' victims of course, she almost certainly viewed those involved at Hillsborough quite culpable in their misfortune.

thatcher not only hated liverpudlians but football fans specifically. at the time she was trying to get her football fan ID card bill through the commons (until the taylor report did for that) and had systematically smeared football fans (alongside trade unionists and the IRA) as an enemy within. it was this culture and within this context that the grave policing errors were conducted

1985-1989 saw zeebrugge, hillsborough, piper alpha, the king's cross fire, clapham common crash, the marchioness, among other things. all characterised by a 'disease of sloppiness' which had set in against a backdrop of increased deregulation of state assets and under investment and a laissez-fare disregard for public safety

Also Corbyn suggesting empty houses - by implication left empty by foreign investors - in RBKC should be requisitioned to re-house victims of the fire.

LOL so is Harriet Harman!

'disease of sloppiness' is a pretty good description of austerity really, but it just makes it sound a bit too benign. When May stated austerity was over (even tho it certainly fucking isn't yet) it was an inadvertent admission that it was always a cold-blooded choice and never a requirement to get the country on a (lol) stable footing etc.

i mean you'd just quit wouldn't you? somehow she's had a worse week than the last week. i never remember a PM being this hated before. it even seems like The M*il and The S*n are turning on her. she must be knackered.

i guess that sightseers-looking couple who advised her were actually doing a good job not a bad one -- at least, considering the material they were working with

maybe advising to her to hide and avoid any troublesome interactions unless they are in safe tory spaces was all they could do with her, but she is still doing the same now without them now! #good austerity

I don't even ...

know.

Like "Do a speech in front of the battle bus in front of a big crowd" so she does in a lay by close-cropped and the crowd are only press and photographers. And her advisors say NOT LIKE THAT!

i guess that sightseers-looking couple who advised her were actually doing a good job not a bad one -- at least, considering the material they were working with

ouch.

(but bloody brilliantly spot on as ever sir)

The Times is reporting the cladding used is banned in the USA and classed as flammable in Germany.

The company that makes it has three types of cladding - two that won't burst into flames and one slightly cheaper one...

In the USA they had problems themselves in recent times with cheap Chinese drywall used en-mass on newbuilds, that caused cables to decay and electrical faults and health problems. So when they ban something - it has to be really fucking shit.

Thatcher visiting ppl after disasters was apparently enough of a 'thing' for these to exist

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2017/05/30/this-selection-of-margaret-thatcher-donor-cards-are-wonderful-thing/

apparently she did visit Hillsborough survivors in hospital, according to someone on twitter

Jesus, per the Times report, the non-flammable ones were £2 more and they saved just £5k by using the others.

often that the bottom line is fuck all is a recurring theme of austerity. Whilst the super-rich stack up £140 bn, that won't drip down #shit fucking trenchant social commentary - but fucking true!

£5k on a refurb that cost £8.7million

I feel that dire statistic really rings a bell that needed ringing tbh.

That dire statistic is ringing a bell in my head that makes me wanna tear someone limb from limb

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/af/77/34/af77347479d76a2d25eab1f1ddfe4839.jpg

It feels like, with the virtually weekly pile-up of atrocities this summer, something just profoundly changed in the psyche of the nation. Obviously this has been building for years but we've just gone over the tipping point. Reading that list of late 80s disasters (which doesn't even include Lockerbie etc) makes you realise how awful that era was but it didn't quite filter through to blaming the government in quite the same way. But then again austerity was never the main stated raison d'etre of the Thatcher government in the way it was under Cameron and Osborne (and by extension May), and so it was never going to equated with their policies in quite the same way.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/21A3/production/_96511680_mirror.jpg

This is the sort of front page that makes me wish people still bought the Mirror.

'fuck yeah daily mirror' is not a thought I've ever had before or ever expected to have at all but here we are

£5k. Their lives could have been saved for £5k. There are neighbours there paying much more than that to tile their bathrooms. I didn't think I could get angrier and I was wrong

It feels like, with the virtually weekly pile-up of atrocities this summer, something just profoundly changed in the psyche of the nation.

This was a different kind of thing, though. I think the others raised the tension and this one, because it's not the sort of attack we just have to be all Stiff Upper Lip about, allowed the pent-up fear and frustration to be released.

And because I think unconsciously people who have hated austerity have known it was even worse than it seemed in places we don't see (and don't look into), and this validated all their worst fears and suspicions. This was austerity in the bones, in the fabric of the world. That's a outrageous thing.

I do think this is our Katrina. But what did Katrina lead to? I don't know my American history well enough to judge but I do see Obama on the one hand and Flint's water on the other. Hopefully, especially with a big ol' commie in charge we can do even better. This does feel like the sort of "enough is enough" sentiment that, if sustained, is the thing that leads to substantial political power. The sort they used to create the NHS, for instance.

re front page of mirror : agreed.

Also Mirror OTM. But social housing isn't and shouldn't be just for the "poorest". Hell, where I grew up in Scotland it was for everyone. Only the really monied lived in the "bought houses".

And that universality is partly what keeps standards up. It's why it matters so much across the whole welfare state.

I'll stop now

1985-1989 saw zeebrugge, hillsborough, piper alpha, the king's cross fire, clapham common crash, the marchioness, among other things...

...Reading that list of late 80s disasters (which doesn't even include Lockerbie etc)...

...and Bradford and Hungerford and Kegworth and The Great Storm (plus terrorist attacks like Enniskillen and Deal). I was a teenager with a morning paper round at that time and it felt like there was a disaster of some kind every couple of months.

There was a similar towerblock fire in Melbourne a couple years ago and theyre now saying it was due to very similar alum/stuffed cladding (fire went real fast up the outside).

The only problem I have with that front page is the idea that social housing is for 'the poorest', it should be for everyone and anyone.

Those of you who didn't watch Sophie Khan's interview on Newsnight tonight should do so. Khan was the lawyer for the victims of the Latimer House fire. She starts off saying the public enquiry raised by May today is a way to attempt to bury the story and that the way we should be moving forward is through inquests. It's an amazing, sobering performance. Starts about 30 minutes in. The contrast between that and the arrogance of Nicholas Paget-Brown from Kensington Council earlier on the show is astonishing.

(oh, I noticed stet just said the same thing seems to have had the same experience as mine) (xp)

Sorry, Lakanel House not Latimer.

There was a similar towerblock fire in Melbourne a couple years ago and theyre now saying it was due to very similar alum/stuffed cladding (fire went real fast up the outside).

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Friday, 16 June 2017 09:15 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The media decided it was caused by and only affected immigrant Chinese Students - so the lack of fire protection, poor design, poor regulation of slum lords was all deemed entirely acceptable by the media and everything was safely forgotten about.

The level of malicious, venal incompetence in the building trade needs aggressively regulating - the people who build my building couldn't even come up with design that could avoid being hit by trucks every week. I fear for anyone who lives in a high rise built in the last 30-years and the cycle of corruption between the construction industry and australian politics means nothing will ever get done and it is only luck that we haven't had more fires.

'fuck yeah daily mirror' is not a thought I've ever had before or ever expected to have at all but here we are

― cast your vote for fully automated gay space luxury communism (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, June 15, 2017 10:57 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ this. And it leaves me feeling empty handed and even more helpless about this atrocity.

Apologies if this has been discussed but what is going on with the official casualty numbers being so low?

They have to wait for positive ID before adding to any tally.

Lily Allen does have a point about the micromanagement of grief, though.

i think official casualty numbers initially reflect bodies actually identified -- so that speculation doesn't cause distress to those looking for friends or relatives in these situation. haven't chased it up today -- not really ready to -- but wasn't there a guardian story late last night saying that many of the bodies may never be identified?

jesus this is so fucking horrible

xp

I get that they can't report a confirmed number, but reporting it so low without mentioning the scale of the likely number is not something I am understanding.

Here's a direct link to Sophie Khan's interview. This is essential viewing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08vf77q/newsnight-15062017#t=31m31s

what would be the benefit of reporting that there could be 500 dead before any further official numbers are released? it's already well-reported how many people lived in the tower, so the scale of the potential death toll is self-evident - all the press would be doing by speculating on numbers, as mark says, is adding to the distress of survivors and relatives of the missing

theresa may's apparently had a firmware update

The Prime Minister is going to visit the injured from the tower block fire in hospital this morning.

— Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) June 16, 2017

i hope every single one of them fucking rips her a new one

Okay fair enough. To me it's not self evident but that doesn't mean anything.

it's a literal disaster area, have some patience ffs

in an era where rolling news expects constant updates no matter whether they're true or not let's be glad the media are showing some restraint for once

don't even know if all the upper floors have actually been visited, let alone carefully checked, as the tower is now i believe structurally unsafe :( :( :(

I don't know what you are taking offense to. In my opinion splashing "7 deaths" across your news coverage and no indication that there are likely many times that is misleading when police and other officials are indicating it is higher. There's no need to lecture me on media restraint which is an important issue to me.

In my opinion splashing "7 deaths" across your news coverage and no indication that there are likely many times that is misleading when police and other officials are indicating it is higher

the sun:

The official death toll stands at 17, but a councillor told Sky News that emergency crews "fear more than 100 people could have died" in the inferno.

daily telegraph:

London fire latest: Grenfell Tower anger grows as death toll could soar above 100

daily mail:

More than 70 residents of Grenfell Tower are still unaccounted for as fire and rescue workers prepare to work their way to the top of the burnt-out building to recover the dead.

can i lecture you on actually reading the coverage you're complaining about instead then

You are attacking me for not reading the daily mail, sun and telegraph...

Anyway I'm not interested in a fight, sorry I annoyed you.

take your fucking tedious lawyer routine to another thread, dickhead.

also you haven't made a decent record since ghosts of the great highway

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/16/met-commander-hopes-death-toll-does-not-hit-triple-figures

this was the guardian story i mentioned from last night: headline isn't a splash, but it does a fair job of triangulating the known and the not-yet-known i think

Uncertain whether the Guardian is acceptable reading for the poster in question or not.

Haha you're wrong anagram, Perils from the Sea is my peak.

Guys there was no offense intended and I don't understand the pile on.

From 2012: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-i-will-kill-off-safety-culture-6285238.html

Guys there was no offense intended and I don't understand the pile on.

- oh noes why aren't the media irresponsibly reporting the potential death toll
- *poster provides reasons why*
- y r u attacking me btw media restraint is very important to me just fyi
- *poster provides examples of media speculation on precisely that topic*
- lol i don't read those rags

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The BBC understands there could be as many as 76 people missing.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/16/sun-journalist-grenfell-tower-victim-hospital?CMP=twt_a-media_b-gdnmedia

jesus fuck

friend of a friend was a trainee reporter with the sun years back - apparently they used to have a costume collection to help reporters pull this kind of shit

Guys it's a tough fuckin thread without being cocks cmon

Only one, er, cock here.

booming piece from david lammy in the graun

The faces of Grenfell Tower victims are the faces of the residents of tower blocks across Britain: working-class, poor and often reliant on the state for their housing and safety. Yet for decades we have been pushing the state out and bringing the private sector in. We privatise profits for shareholders, but it is the insurance policy the state provides that lets them get away with it, always stepping in when the failures of the private sector spill over.

When we privatise hospital cleaning, we get MRSA. When the private sector fails to build affordable housing, the taxpayer foots the bill through soaring housing benefit costs. This week we got firefighters running towards a burning building following serious shortcomings on the part of a landlord.

This goes way beyond party politics and left v right. In 2017 we have to ask serious questions about what we have become when refurbishments were made to the outside of Grenfell Tower last year at great expense, as much to improve the view from the luxury flats that have been built around it as to improve conditions for residents. In one of the country’s richest boroughs there could be no starker encapsulation of the grotesque inequalities that plague our capital city.

https://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/A190/production/_96506314_img_0225.jpg

Sajid Javid saying "we will do whatever necessary" to stop something similar happening again; fuck that guy and fuck the Tories, this is their fault for deregulating the housing market and voting against measures to ensure tenant safety (notably very many of the Tory MPs that voted against the Labour bill was a landlord). The horse has well and truly bolted (indeed been encouraged to bolt), half-hearted measures to close the stable door are no consolation.

MP's (even the PLP landlords) constantly voting down housing regulation bills is something that needs to be stopped, and yet they have bare faced cheek to call people "self-interest groups" as a derogatory.

sorry - shit typing. i'm in a rush.

you're a self-interest group, we're neutral and wise legislators with no outside interests. Condemning people to death in a burning tower block is a mere unfortunate coincidence.

1. Thread on public inquiries versus inquests from someone who has acted in many of both #GrenfellTower

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) June 16, 2017

as ever, fuck boris johnson

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/96bf9b6d3563f7da8f948e6c09f094cdc78cd307/0_0_499_423/master/499.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=3f6cd1ed1c9454ddeafd2d0707cf0bd7

skwawkbox now reporting rumours that the govt has slapped a d-notice on reporting of the known number of victims

i personally don't put much weight on this bcz:
(a) the reporting seems to be being done anyway
(b) it's not info the govt actually has control over
(c) seriously doubt that newspapers wd wear the "national security" argument at this time (they'd push back and run the story anyway and say "came at me legally if you dare" to the govt)
(d) skwawkbox be bein skwawkbox :\

if it *is* true (which as i say i suspect it isn't), kozolek -- to give credit where due -- could in fact be picking at the correct scab

Kensington & Chelsea Council leader just said that the fire was an "appalling tragedy" and "it's not a question of wealth or economy"

I mean come the fuck on.

Haven't seen the finger pointed at 'fire service cuts'. Have seen firemen on social media throwing Tory praise of them back due to blocking pay rises year after year in addition to the evident safety compromises.

video of boris saying "get stuffed" re the problems of fire service cuts has been (correctly) much retweeted and shared

he has gone on facebook to describe this as "appalling politicking" and "an attack on the emergency services"

no-one's pointing the finger at fire service cuts nearly as much as all the other failures in the system boris wilfully ignores in his statement, the disingenuous cunt

blaming labour for political pointscoring while doing exactly the same thing himself

also worth pointing out that the fire service did a sterling job despite working 12-hour shifts instead of the four-hour shifts they might have been able to do if the service hadn't been cut

Inevitably the Express has blamed the EU. The Mail has blamed 'green targets'.

gnnnnnggghhhhh

nice

the mail's shithead jujitsu is just unerring

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but it looks like Reynobond PE was used in the cladding rather than Reynobond FR - where FR stands for fire-resistant. It just kind of amazes me that there even exists a cheaper alternate that is somewhat flammable. "I couldn't stretch to the Audi A6, so I bought the model they make that comes without brakes or airbags." The idea being that you don't use it in buildings taller than the fire service can easily get to. FFS.

https://www.streetlib.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/capitalism.gif

The idea being that you don't use it in buildings taller than the fire service can easily get to. FFS

The example I heard was you use it in shop fronts and places like petrol stations. Because those burning is clearly not a concern

This is obviously historic, but fuck Rees-Mogg anyway. Can't bear this "he's such a retro ledge; look at his insta i luv him" thing that has been springing up around him http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-safety-standards-workers-rights-jacob-rees-mogg-a7459336.html

Can't bear this "he's such a retro ledge; look at his insta i luv him" thing that has been springing up around him

wait is this really a thing? ffs what is wrong with people

may be a niche thing w/i london media, i seriously doubt anywhere beyond that

People like Owen Jones and Mhairi Black have talked with an apparently genuine sense of fondness about JR-M. Either he's exceptionally good at public school social cues and making people feel at home in person, or he has the sort of genial magnanimity and friendliness with political opponents that comes from having being brought up in such a rarified stratum of society that you can afford to, because you genuinely don't understand why other people consider the stakes so high. I'm guessing he isn't very bright and generally behaves like someone's loveably dotty old aunt who everyone loves until they suddenly say something reprehensible.

on hignfy one time victoria coren said she fancied him

Well, nerds are her fetish so...

also there is no transitional demand more vital to the revolution than "cancel hignfy"

🤝

sounds like we need a 'dry, musty sex with jacob rees-mogg: y/n' thraed

the guy's got like eight kids though so maybe he is a top-flight fuck-machine

Rees-Mogg likes to attend the Tridentine Mass when available: "We're very lucky if we get it in Somerset once a month. The more you go the more you will find that it is a good thing to go to. You get some time to think and it's not all noisy – and there's no risk of guitars. I think Mass can be too noisy and guitars should be banned."

hawt

You get some time to think and it's not all noisy – and there's no risk of guitars.

New board description for ILM.

in 20 years time we're going to learn that mogg's continued presence in public life was the one hurdle the May-DUP negotiations failed to clear

It's going to be a nightmare unpicking the contractual stuff around the tower improvement project: design and build, subcontractual arrangements, compliance with regs at sign off. How many parties knew that the non-fr panels were being installed and didn't think, from a potential fire safety point of view, "excuse me I'm not sure this is a good idea ". All parties have a duty to h&s under the cdm regs.

And I think that contractual unravelling, with loads of legals making a mint, will be enough diversion to cover for the more senior people who should be in the frame.

d-notice thing is bollocks

The TMO have been making good use of their time today, not by managing rehousing, but by hand delivering letters dated Wednesday to local residents warning about anti social behaviour - ball games - according to the graun.

they're lucky they don't get those letters shoved up their arse

re "enough diversion to cover for the more senior people who should be in the frame": i think the pressure point from here on in will not so much be the results of this inquiry and who's to blame -- tho i'm totally happy with david lammy agitating as he is, that senior councillors shd end up in jail -- than during the upcoming process of making sure such estates are safe in every city and town in the entire country

= active residents committees availing themselves of informed expertise and legal advice and refusing to be fobbed off with obfuscation and opacity in council and city contract-making

Someone probably said you'd better not get those letters out today with all that's going on, they can wait till Friday. But make sure they're out by then, this ball games issue needs dealing with.

Should I change the date on the letter?

No it will be alright. Don't be printing all that lot again.

Given his personal connection to one of the victims, David Lammy isn't going to let this go and therefore neither are Labour.

council on the back foot will include many labour councils sadly: cf the haringey development vehicle >:(

Good point mark s. Landlords need to be actively engaging with multis residents now. Potential sticking point will be financial cost of increased fire safety works, plus the feasibility of installing those measures in old blocks.

Protesters have stormed into Kensington town hall apparently?

Amazed it took so long. It's coming across pretty clearly that there has been fuck-all council action on the ground. Residents saying they see firemen and they see volunteers and that's it. Meanwhile council leader pontificates on telly.

Council had their chance to respond properly and seems to have blown it

when people are heckling the queen you can tell something's not right. people are (rightly) very angry.

Those letters were apparently hand delivered fwiw.

protests/storming of the council all live on BBC News right now fyi

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCcyWOGXoAAOD2p.jpg

I'd fucking love to see Nick Robinson reporting from this protest, and maybe trying to explain to some of them his belief that this tragedy wasn't a result of inequality.

owen hatherley makes the excellent point in dezeen that the new mp for kensington, emma dent coad, is an architectural scholar as well as an activist involved in debates abt regeneration so-called (versus actually providing good social housing)

when people are heckling the queen you can tell something's not right.

well...

Side issue but there's not much point trying to get a response from a town hall after 4pm on a Friday.

May's visit has gone down great. She must be begging the BoJo and co. to let her quit at this point.

People here furious about the PMs secretive visit and refusing to speak to ppl outside. Went into the church and was ushered into her car

— AssedBaig (@AssedBaig) June 16, 2017

Burn neoliberalism, not people. pic.twitter.com/2cEgXo6RBS

— Clive Lewis (@labourlewis) June 16, 2017

Shocking scenes as Theresa May bundled into a car by police amid fury from the pushing crowd

— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) June 16, 2017

that's cracking. folk were shouting murderer at her and that apparently.

she has had a (well deserved) bad week

Wow. This interview with a tearful David Lammy MP really feels like part of something changing, profoundly pic.twitter.com/CeYmTjT74e

— Jack Seale (@jackseale) June 16, 2017

🐦[Shocking scenes as Theresa May bundled into a car by police amid fury from the pushing crowd
— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) June 16, 2017🕸]🐦

more pleasing than shocking, i'd say

KGM is actually quite angry about this (abt may not speaking rather than the fury of the pushing crowds)

anyway i think he is

that dezeen piece is very good. Interesting how the faux polie language of gentrification has progressed since the 90's from "social exclusion" "regeneration" to str8 ruthless "decanting" and I recall one top architect referring to social housing tenants as "freeriders" last year.

Just lost it when five year old Isaac Shawo's photo came on TV there.

im hungover and this had me wiping my eyes a bit

.@DavidLammy becomes tearful when remembering Khadija Saye, a friend lost in the Grenfell Tower fire. pic.twitter.com/OJdJA5FYSY

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 16, 2017

fuck that david lammy clip is heartbreaking

fucking real passion there.

meanwhile this is exhilarating

Theresa May leaves St Clements Church as angry protests charge her car @5_News pic.twitter.com/KR32XfKz3t

— Rachel Lucas (@rachel5news) June 16, 2017

Just lost it when five year old Isaac Shawo's photo came on TV there.

reading his parents' account of losing him in the smoke yesterday nearly had me bawling in the office

KGM is actually quite angry about this (abt may not speaking rather than the fury of the pushing crowds)

― mark s, Friday, 16 June 2017 17:25 (thirty-four minutes ago) Permalink

There was a tweet from KGM on my TL saying something like "its 10.30am and already no govt minister is prepared to give an interview at C4 tonight"

Lack of accountability and disrepect - what does May think she is doing going down there and simply slipping inside a church? - is so ingrained at local level, its still something to see it at a time like this, for everybody to see.

jesus, the footage of that woman screaming murderer at theresa may on channel 4 news

appreciate these things are probably very difficult to do at pace but seems like it may have been a strategic (and moral!) error, among one of many, on behalf of govt not to rehouse those affected asap. one of the protestors at the kensington council was asked why they were there and she said she has nowhere else to go

not to mention what seems like a bungled response by the council which has led to a real authority vacuum within a very febrile environment

This appears to be @Conservatives councillor responsible for housing on Solihull council comparing #GrenfellTower community to a lynch mob pic.twitter.com/soDZ4vCN40

— Martin Belam (@MartinBelam) June 16, 2017

Also, almost every piece of live coverage I've seen of the demonstrators has shown them decrying the suppressed death toll reported. Not trying to reignite anything but maybe it is worth discussing after all, no?

A friend has pointed out that the weather in London is going to get hotter and hotter over the weekend, and that you might not bet against a riot.

the worst take... ever? https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/beware-of-blaming-government-for-london-tower-fire

Consider the speed at which many of you drove to work this morning. I’m sure you’re all splendid, careful drivers. Nonetheless, when a vehicle is being piloted at 50 or 60 miles an hour, the margin of error for avoiding an accident is pretty small. To drive a car even at 5 miles per hour is to accept a small risk of killing oneself and others. To drive at 50 miles per hour is to accept a much higher risk of doing so. It’s a calculation: risk versus reward.

jfc

she is resolutely the worst

that is a noisome and shameful piece of thinking

A friend has pointed out that the weather in London is going to get hotter and hotter over the weekend, and that you might not bet against a riot.

not that i wouldn't enjoy the sight of george osborne's windaes getting panned in but given the poor choices the government have been making in recent days i'd half-expect a disproportionate response from the authorities in return

_Just lost it when five year old Isaac Shawo's photo came on TV there._

reading his parents' account of losing him in the smoke yesterday nearly had me bawling in the office

That story is utterly heartbreaking. And I can't bear knowing there are another 50 more like it to come.

I hope the riot to come doesn't get used to distract from the momentum for change we seem to have

Lots of protesters on the way to Downing Street

#JusticeForGrenfell arriving at Downing Street. Anger being directed at Tory Prime Minister Theresa May. pic.twitter.com/QzNHbQNFG2

— Michael Gray (@GrayInGlasgow) June 16, 2017

good twitter thread on the front-line response and where the cracks are:

Response to #GrenfellFire shows how public sector has evolved in last c.30 years 1/n

— Chris Williams (@Chris_A_W) June 16, 2017

This is one of those things that seems utterly obvious when pointed out but that I didn't realise at all. Of course in the olden days you could just ask the school dinner crew to stay late and keep the kitchen open. You can't do that when it's an sub-contracted outsourced provider. You probably don't even know who to phone.

It's all the hidden and secret costs of neolib thinking this is exposing.

One thing I don't understand, but hope we get some clarity on, is how this refurb coat @£10million. That's about £80,000 per flat, an mount you could get pretty close to building new units for.

v routine for repairs on council flats to be inexplicably large. often there seems to be some arrangement where the council is locked in to a contract with some contracter. it also seems quite often to be about p making a point that these repairs are costly.

Telegraph going to type here

Saturday's Daily TELEGRAPH: "Militants hijack inferno protest" #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/FVDa8Dpj2X

— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 16, 2017

fuck. off.

Took those two words out of my mouth.

Why should they be lied to about the number of dead. The disrespect is so clear. Authority fears riots because it knows what it's done

— AntoniaB (@AntoniaB4) June 16, 2017

xxxp
I can remember similar fake reportage over the first Stephen Lawrence march in early 90's. Tory scum press gotta try and maintain their weakening deathgrip, despite the war being lost.

surely harder to sustain those false narratives around public events in social media citizen journalism era

hope so but it's also the FAKE NEWS era unfortch

you'd think that seeing the earth from space would shut up flat earthers but

Post to cut out and keep handy in one's pocket

the worst take... ever? https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/beware-of-blaming-government-for-london-tower-fire🕸

Well yes given that fire precaution work could have been included in the multimillion project last year.

Fingers also being pointed at national grid now.

One thing I don't understand, but hope we get some clarity on, is how this refurb coat @£10million. That's about £80,000 per flat, an mount you could get pretty close to building new units for.

I've had some experience of similar works (not in London) and enveloping is not cheap. Add in a new heating system and the reconfiguration of the lower floors, environmental works etc and that cost - though eye-watering on the face of it - is probably about right.

Was that just for one block? They said another two of those 5 had similar treatment.

£5m pledged to fix things.

It has been good to see, amid the tone policing from Deborah Orr and Marina Hyde, centrist hacks talking about four decades of failed policy rather than blaming everything on seven years of Tory austerity.

Marina Hyde was saying Clive Lewis hasn't got the class of Old Labour re: his "burn neoliberalism" tweet, she is a total arsehole. I think Nye Bevan would have dismissed her as "middle of the road" in quite plainly expressed english.

Lol @ ex-Sun hack and ex of Piers Morgan fronting as custodian of labour party tradition.

One of those hacks who used to rip into Blair and brown from the left, then reacted in total horror when the labour party finally shifted decisively in that direction

And daughter of the Baronet of Exeter.

Stephen Moss also equally terrible.

struck me just now that "tory twitter now: thisisfine.jpg" would be on the nose: in other words, having to work quite hard policing my own tone at the moment

£5m pledged to fix things.

yet another government pr bungle: 'here's half the cost of the cladding which killed people, aren't we generous'

there are currently 93 kensington properties on rightmove priced at £5m or more btw

As someone pointed out the £5m just covers stuff many in the community have provided and raised considerable funds for.

No housing is mentioned - what is the plan in regards to that?

Was catching with bits of footage this morning, and someone else made the excellent point that it must be the first time in a long long while where working-class voices are consistently being heard - we get to know their day-to-day struggles over various issues. Most of us may read about this but its now inevitably being screamed at while cameras are pointing at it.

Dan Johnson (numpt news24 hack) got a righteous paint-stripping hairdryer from an angry w/c woman yesterday for asking gormless questions in the name of creating "content". It was a beautiful moment.

Working class voices were regularly "listened to" when they suited a right-wing narrative (eg Brexit, immigration) but as we know immigration was the only working-class concern that anyone in the Tory Party gave a shit about. The aforementioned working class people were usually white, btw.

What's different this time is that the non-white working class is making its voice heard, loudly and angrily and repeatedly and actually being heard.

This hasn't aged well, has it @David_Cameron? pic.twitter.com/yoqUug6yF0

— hrtbps (@hrtbps) June 17, 2017

I remember Cameron making a speech to the Tory conference that literally included the line "Britannia did not rule the waves with armbands on", probably the worst line in any political speech ever for multiple reasons.

what a stirring orator he was

By contrast I just watched that interview with David Lammy and it deserves to be played again and again for decades.

it's beautiful

I hate myself for giving Orr No! another click. Will never do that again, ban hate-reading!

ugh i have to hateread something by j.harris today or tomorrow for research purposes (ostensibly abt music rather than politics, except it actually is abt politics)

This letter. #GrenfellTower pic.twitter.com/zEHlFcATAw

— James Rhodes (@JRhodesPianist) June 17, 2017

Brilliant

Oof

Fucking hell

that is incredible - hats off to whoever wrote that, it's an otm for the ages

The "Missing" posters that have started appearing on local bus stops are heartbreaking. The 'gofundme' appeal posters less so. That would be so easy to abuse.

And the tube lines between h'smith and Edgeware road are closed because of the fire despite me having used them on Thursday.

Mitchell & Webb parodied Cameron here.

At least Cameron's thinking.

I've been following this like crazy this week and I realized it's for a couple of reasons:

1. cascading organizational failures that lead to disasters like this are tremendously important to me in an almost prurient fashion, my interest in system failure such as this is deep and borders on the obsessive. If I had the discipline and drive I'd do a dissertation on interconnected institutions catastrophically shitting themselves and write books like Perrow's "Normal Accidents" but maybe even better, also modern and shit

2. I can't tolerate anything about my domestic political situation at present so this is a welcome distraction, as awful as that sounds

3. good luck uk

now a few days have passed the emboldened austerity apologists were getting a bit louder on Marr earlier. If I hear another dickhead trying to say a sprinkler system wouldn't have made a difference I'm going to snap.

2. I can't tolerate anything about my domestic political situation at present so this is a welcome distraction, as awful as that sounds

To be fair, this is why I read the Trump threads but tend to avoid the UK politics ones. (Actually, post-election I'm back to reading the UK pol threads tho' not posting.)

I think both perspectives are easy to relate to considering the two different shitshows that have been going down

tbh I usually enjoy best of both worlds but the hopelessness of trump and the tragedy of the recent fire have made both avoid zones at this stage

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/18/sadiq-khan-grenfell-tower-tragedy-establish-full-truth

The greatest legacy of this tragedy may well end up being the skyline of our towns and cities. In the postwar rush to reconstruct our country, towers went up in large numbers, most of which are still here today. Nowadays, we would not dream of building towers to the standards of the 1970s, but their inhabitants still have to live with that legacy. It may well be the defining outcome of this tragedy that the worst mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s are systematically torn down. Of course, this must mean people being rehoused in the same areas where they have put down roots.

This is pretty infuriating. It wasn't the standards of the seventies that killed 80-odd people, it was the standards of 2016. The idea that if you start tearing tower blocks across major British cities down, rather than making them as safe as they are in Germany, people will be re-housed in low-rise, new-build estates in the same neighbourhood is a fantasy.

I don't think Khan's position on social housing is any different to most Tories, so no surprise that he is talking absolute shite.

OTM, my sister loved living in her high rise.

he does of course have boundless enthusiasm for the affordable housing schemes that are being built over the homes of decanted social tenants, so at least he is being consistent.

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/i-wouldn-t-want-to-live-anywhere-else-but-a-block-of-flats-like-grenfell-tower-a3566606.html

^^^stephen bush there, good for him

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/18/cladding-on-grenfell-tower-banned-in-uk-says-philip-hammond

Jesus, 60+ people dead in a forest fire in Portugal today.

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/i-wouldn-t-want-to-live-anywhere-else-but-a-block-of-flats-like-grenfell-tower-a3566606.html🕸

lol I missed the headline in the middle and was momentarily very impressed by how talk of moral hazard turned to the topic of Wonder Woman.

Eve Allison, a Conservative who sits on Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council, said the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower should have looked at the inside as well as the outside of the block.

“It is on our watch, it’s our responsibility, we do have a duty of care to all our residents and whatever findings and failings come out, they have to come out soon because all the community, the victims, the families, people need answers,” she told BBC Breakfast.

“All too often we’re a little bit too concerned with how the immediate streetscape looks, how a building fits into other buildings, does it detract from the immediate streetscape.”

“I was not involved with the actual planning of the recent refurbishment....from what I’m hearing, it would have been ideal if part of the refurbishment package had looked at actually trying to gentrify inside, not just outside. “

!

Nick Robinson was really grinding my gears earlier. I can accept that he is an ingrained Tory and the bbc allow him to bring his biases to work with him, but he can fuck and die atm. I don't how many other factors there have been in this disaster, but the simple connection of government drastically cutting local authority funding and local authorities doing shoddy and dangerous refurbs to meet reduced budgets isn't going to be waved away with that weak shit he is coming out with.

This is pretty infuriating. It wasn't the standards of the seventies that killed 80-odd people, it was the standards of 2016. The idea that if you start tearing tower blocks across major British cities down, rather than making them as safe as they are in Germany, people will be re-housed in low-rise, new-build estates in the same neighbourhood is a fantasy.

― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, June 18, 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was meeting a friend at the Barbican yesterday. Is there anyone who'd want to tear those down? Fucking scum.

The battle to re-house the people who have lost everything in the borough will be key - saw something on my TL around attempts to re-house people outside of London? Its just outrageous.

yup, some of them as far away as preston

really really hoping labour politicians and papers like the mirror can hold the line on this: obviously it instantly undercuts the "expropriation is the end of civilisation" argument

It becomes really difficult to counter the many overlapping arguments against different social housing developments by those that are hostile to them. I don't think it is satisfactory to simply say that High-rise is the only option or is *necessarily* the best option. Its a very complicated issue though. And High rise v low rise has become this very unhelpful but loaded faultline for people arguing all kinds of things about housing and its uses and what makes it good or bad and what is possible or what is necessary.

I do think that the postwar push in this country to build social housing was an extraordinary achievement, and there has been a successful pushback in recent years against various attempts to discredit social housing as a project. The sink estate narrative has deep talons and I think many people have internalised much of the terrible things said about estates and those that live on them. And the starving of estates for years from the 1980s of repairs and services did do much to undermine the integrity of estate communities. But its also not necessary to completely lionise every effort by the architects of the social housing boom and to swallow every modernist principle about the designs for living that was popularised in this period.

Its true that there is a deep hypocrisy that characterises the villainisation of tower blocks in particular. Tower blocks for the poor are painted as being inherently substandard, alien from the "natural" streetscape, meanly denying people of gardens,etc. These accusations are hardly ever levelled at the enormous piles of "luxury" housing I see popping up all over the capital. The stuff that is vaguely affordable, in the sense that it actually has people living in it, seems to me to incredibly mean, often smaller than the social housing units that it has replaced, and thrown up on expensive land with substandard building processes, on the cheap. Yet this housing rarely comes into the crosshairs for being substandard in the same way. It almost makes you suspect that there are other motivations for this concern....

It is true, though, that tower blocks are a rather sharp shift in terms of the traditional spatial organisation of people in relation to each other, and this does have many implications in terms of safety, crime, accessibility, community cohesion, access to other services and social spaces. In terms of urban living, high-rise living does open new questions in terms of governance that are more complex than high-rise bad low-rise good. (although again the notion that high rise allows more density is a rather fatuous density, there are extroardinary examples of low-rise high density housing all over london, much of it very successful, cressingham gardens, just by my house is one example, and it is constantly threatened with demolition by the council in order to build new high-rise, mostly-private housing in its place).

It would be a terrible shame if this tragedy became another way of attacking social housing at a time when the UK and London in particular is in desparate need of large social housing projects. In these attacks, a hatred of social housing has always masqueraded as concern for the poor against the arrogance of those modernist architects.

Someone finally said it. @DJISLA #GrenfellTower pic.twitter.com/YCN2Fke38p

— حمزه (@HamzLdn) June 17, 2017

damn

wow. It cuts off prematurely :(

reminds me of 9/11 when there was this rush to "donate blood" and it turned out p much everybody was dead, did not need the blood

They're all dead, yes.
And the philanthropy marketing of the Red Cross needs to die as well.

That woman is awesome btw

You've probably all seen this but I literally cannot get over it. The way he's talking, the language, it's utterly shocking. "We were delighted to have squeezed in more flats" "we got the boxing club a wonderful facility" "a wonderful and happy opening" "we are delighted to welcome the Secretary of State who's coming tomorrow". What the actual fuck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwvLKIbE264

" a judicious use of space"!

similar story to the video upthread

If you want the truth about #GrenfellTower, listen to the residents and eyewitnesses. Not the authorities. pic.twitter.com/pALQ1E2Gds

— আবু মারিয়া (@Faysal_FreeGaza) June 18, 2017

Couldn't watch that fucking council member talk for long.

I wouldn't say it was shocking though, really grimly predictable. I've known too many people exactly like that in my life. From all over the world, so congratulations London, it's not you.

Mother of God.. read this from Trumpton inside #GrenfellTower https://t.co/eFDrXw1Kw9

— Inspector Gadget (@InspGadgetBlogs) June 18, 2017

That woman is extraordinary

"It would be a terrible shame if this tragedy became another way of attacking social housing at a time when the UK and London in particular is in desparate need of large social housing projects. "

It doesn't help when the Mayor is putting out a totally bullshit message about this tragedy that is just as wrong and muddled as the desperate apologist tones of other various Tory shitheels rn. It is very convenient to blame the housing planners of 50 years ago, but this has fuck all to do with them. FFS every major city in the world has towerblocks dotted all over the place that have had proper refurbs and are safe for human habitation. If anything the only way of dealing with the housing crisis in London would be more social housing and building upwards. Khan seems to be totally out of tune with his party's manifesto imo. Not being as big a cunt as Zac Goldsmith just isn't cutting it rn imo.

Assume he's calling for the Barbican to be pulled down too

Well I thought that Skepta vid for Shutdown was filmed on a London council tower-block estate, until someone pointed out it was the Barbican.

Which is a london council towerblock estate to a certain extent and still a model for how to build one.

That firefighters account - whatever we pay firefighters, it's not enough. Next time they try and cut there fire service, that account needs to be plastered everywhere.

i don't think the barbican is a useful model for building social housing unless you think putting a world class concert hall in every tower block is realistic. but there are excellent examples all over the uk of successful high rise and low rise housing.

can't find a diagram that makes it clear, but the concert hall is only quite a small part of the barbican estate complex -- as originally conceived, the bulk of it was conceived as social housing (with some privately owned blocks maybe), tho this was fvcked up when thatcher allowed ppl to start buying their council properties; certainly the overall layout was very much thought of as a solution to some of the problems earlier brutalist estates had with a sense of shared community space

http://www.barbicanliving.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/151201_-MAP_SOUTH_TO_NORTH.jpg

name-dropping note: i once waked round it with owen hatherley and mark fisher and nina power and chums, while owen explained why some of the elements were so excellent -- there was a booksale in the little church in the middle, and i bought a fontana modern masters on frantz fanon

yeah it's p spread out - feels more like an area rather than simply a concert hall.

The key point re the Barbican is building in diversity of uses within housing estates whether that's a boxing gym, shops, sports facilities or, yes, even an arts complex, why not?

So that people outside of the estates use those areas too and the residents are not "othered" in a sense. The Unité D'Habitation has a hotel in it, for example.

concert hall is i think not actually pictured in that^^^ diagram? it's the space in front of frobisher crescent and looks across the water at st giles cripplegate, which is the church (also the name of a v good lp by the v problematic jack nitzsche)

(all the non-residential buildings, like the guildhall school for music and drama and the city of london school for girls, are omitted)

I stayed at the Unite dHabitation in Marseille once and got the distinct impression from the residents that the main problem was feeling gawked at by modernism tourists....

I think a lot of incredulity is needed wrt to the claims of "good design" in relation to housing projects. What distinguishes the barbican first and foremost is wealth and prestige. The inhabitants are wealthy and the building is well maintained, the balconies are kept neat, there is good security.

Lots of estates are built with a pub, some shops, a community centre, sometimes even offices. This does not explain why in some cases the shops are all vacant and the pub is genuinely scary. Good design might help in preventing estates from developing blind spots, or in making spaces that feel less remote, weird culs-de-sac. But this is of limited use if the council is using the estate as a last resort for "problem" families, and making no attempt at other interventions, (sure start, youth work, etc.) There are much larger structural issues affecting social cohesion that estates can become barometers of. I think a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the social engineering claims of architects is always needed, particularly given the radically divergent results the same approach can have in two given instances as a result of other tangential factors.

The woman is incredible. Tbf I have been amazed by how well-informed, level-headed, emotional obv but completely otm and 'real' all the people from the area of the building have been. It made me regain some faith in humanity. Which is idiotic. Because they are humanity. If only we'd see them on the telly more often than just after a massive tragedy. This is doing my brain in. So many good people out there, but alas, they're not politicians...

Great post Plax, and I agree with you on all point except that I didn't get that impression re The Unité. It's perhaps something to take to a new thread at greater length. You're right to be sceptical of architectural spin but the original Architects can't bear the brunt of the responsibility here but neither can they just give up. Thats why Khan's response is so wrong and frustrating.

And the Barbican went through a good 20 years of being vilified in the uk before being embraced again iirc and yes, it was partly because of wealth.

But this is of limited use if the council is using the estate as a last resort for "problem" families, and making no attempt at other interventions, (sure start, youth work, etc.)

Council housing is always offered first to 'problem cases', isn't it? When did that start? I suppose when the housing stock started being depleted.

So many good people out there, but alas, they're not politicians...

good people rarely go into politics, coincidentally, for reasons that aren't too dissimilar from why most of us don't go into firefighting or combat

30,000 buildings in UK are covered in the same cladding as Grenfell Tower

87 more tower blocks use the same cladding

30,000 or 87? Because I find it unlikely that 29,900 odd non-tower blocks are clad in it.

It's common in low-rise applications, especially shops/commercial apparently

as mentioned upthread, it's considered acceptable on storefronts and as you say "petrol stations" because if those go up it's what's inside that matters, not so much what's on the facade

can you really AFFORD to strip and re-refurb 87 high rise housing complexes, though, in these times, etc

I'm just sceptical about that particular figure.

http://imgur.com/hrzEUoT

http://imgur.com/wc2Yg7M

https://image.ibb.co/cVbsa5/image.jpg[
https://image.ibb.co/fRJihk/image.jpg[

Glasgow has a Tory MP? I truly understand nothing

MSP (member of the Scottish Parliament) which is apportioned through proportional representation. If they got @ 15% of the votes they would get an MSP.

oh wait lol that's the one that drinks and is a lesbian and should maybe get the PM job

yes

ThT was a stupidly simplistic way to describe how it's apportioned but yes, you don't have to win a seat to get representation because it's tallied by a larger area not a specific seat. Kind of.

Police say 79 dead or missing. I know I shouldn't be surprised by this but still comes as a shock.

I didn't get that impression re The Unité

this might also have been my own paranoia! however, these psychic dimensions of buildings are not irrelevant in terms of their safety. If estates are seen to be dodgy, this will have some effect on how safe people feel in them, how they behave when there, how they consider them from a decision-making point of view, etc.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/alarming-grenfell-similarities-whistleblower-claims-10640564

Denial within the article, but the quoted council press release in the article strongly implies the Scottish government recategorised safety standards of building materials in 2013.

A council statement from November 2013 confirmed insulation work had been given the green light to resume after new Government guidance had ruled them safe. Housing issues are devolved to Holyrood but the Scottish Government often follows the same guidelines as the rest of the United Kingdom.

The press release said: “Insulation work is to begin again at council properties in the Dumbarton and Alexandria area after new guidance from the Government acknowledged the materials being used were ‘low risk’ in terms of flammability. The council’s contractor had halted work at a number of properties after concerns were raised over a technical issue relating to the external wall insulation systems being installed.”

Joe Delaney – a local resident who said he was acting on behalf of the community – told the Guardian: “I asked staff from the local job centre and DWP staff at Westway Sports Centre to correct this matter today. All they did was what everyone in authority has done so far: offer platitudes and ask traumatised people to do the running by calling to beg for this to happen.”

He claimed that the DWP only later moved to clarify the position when disquiet began to emerge on on social media. “Once it became clear that there was media attention focused on them, they have finally done the right thing. Why should it take shame for them to act? Where is their humanity?”

It sounds like the DWP dragged their feet on the temporary suspension of sanctions in Grenfell, very classy.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/sixtyeight-flats-in-2bn-luxury-block-to-be-given-to-families-whose-lives-were-devastated-in-grenfell-a3569876.html

Andrew Lillico will be spluttering into his cocoa. I thought there was no such thing as 'permanent residency' for council house tenants? What if one of them gets a good job? As head of the RMT for instance?

some interesting details in there

The complex, a former HMRC office block, is owned by developer St Edward, a joint venture between the Berkeley Group and Prudential

Two bedroom flats are currently being advertised for up to £2.4 million, meaning the overall cost could be as much as £150 million.

A source at the development said many of the flats had been bought by foreign buyers, often knocking through walls to make bigger homes. The source said: “It is crazy money. The garage is full of Maseratis and Ferraris. But I think maybe the people here wouldn’t mind the empty flats being used - it would be a way of giving something back.

“There are a lot of empty flats here - it would be the right thing to do.”

the government sells property and it's snapped up by developers who sell flats for millions to people who don't have any intention of living there, great stuff

nationalise the construction and development industries tbh

lolico, call hi by his name

the comments on that article are, of course, largely horrific

feels bizarre and perverse and indicative of the state of things that the city fucks up housing people in places that meet a basic standard to the point that tens of people die as a result, then makes amends by giving those people a multi-million pound home with a swimming pool, around the corner.

i'd be really interested to know how much the building sold for when hmrc gave it up by my google powers are failing me

It's like those stories where billionaires are asked by their maids to sort out toilet roll supply and buy them a factory or something. Or the local poshos who donated sets of golf clubs. Can just see the City of London saying "need to get these fellows some flats, but nothing too dear of course, why, hello there".

Hopefully will depress the prices on the other intended empty units and start the great buy-to-invest exodus.

xp
From a bit of googling, it looks like lots of the HMRC estate (including Charles House, this building) was taken over by Mapeley under a PFI deal in 2001…
https://www.nao.org.uk/report/hm-revenue-customs-estate-private-finance-deal-eight-years-on/
I can't see what happened after that. Did Mapeley sell it on?

the standard story says it's currently owned by a developer st edward, so i guess so

i'd be really interested to know how much the building sold for when hmrc gave it up by my google powers are failing me

I'm struggling too but I'm trying the Council's Capital programme documents. Most interesting thing I've found in them so far is in the 2013-14 statement:

https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/pdf/capital_programme_2013-14.pdf

Grenfell Tower Refurbishment – the tower is a 23 storey
1970s tower block that is in need of refurbishment and updating.
The project includes window replacement, thermal cladding to
improve insulation, a new communal heating system and
conversion of unused office space into additional dwellings.

So confirmation from contemporaneous documents that the cladding work was primarily for insulation purposes and not the cosmetic story doing the rounds.

The aesthetic concerns were part of the spec, as is normal whenever estates (including mine) are regenerated (our regeneration has been put on indefinite hold, huzzah - Camden tenants voted against handing over to an ALMO).

tbf i don't think they were ever likely to outright say the work was to tidy up an eyesore in an official document - insulation seems like a plausible reason and if it just happens to also make the building less offensive to affluent eyes, well then i guess it's just a bonus eh what-what *pops champagne cork, ingites £100 note in front of a homeless person*

Right, I think I have it...

https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo021107/text/21107w85.htm

Mapeley paid £370M for the IR/HMCE properties

http://www.mapeley.com/CaseStudies/CharlesHouse.aspx

Mapely got rid of it for Nil Premium to clear their liabilities when HMRC cut back on their office needs

interesting - cheers aldo

so it sold for £370m and is now allegedly worth £2bn, while the cost of rehousing local people there could be £150m

hurrah for capitalism

St Edward apparently sold the apartments at "cost price" - so £10m rather than £150m.

However, it's not clear if these were the existing "affordable housing" units built into the development.

Affordable housing was removed as a requirement:

http://www.kensingtonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/Annual-2014-2015.pdf

Page 49 or thereabouts

Basically, in the choice between affordable housing or the school the planners chose the school. Also issues with providing new/separate access.

I wasn't suggesting earlier that cosmetics wasn't a consideration at Grenfell Tower, but it absolutely wouldn't be unusual on a Capital Programme report to say that work was cosmetic/to improve the appearance.

£370M wasn't for Charles House, it was for ALL the buildings in that Hansard answer.

According to this guy's LinkedIn profile, just the cost of demolishing the building as was before new build/regen could start was £2.5M

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-read-49a01248/?ppe=1

I wasn't suggesting earlier that cosmetics wasn't a consideration at Grenfell Tower, but it absolutely wouldn't be unusual on a Capital Programme report to say that work was cosmetic/to improve the appearance.

The external finishes would have needed planning approval from the council. So there was scope there for council officials to have some input into the aesthetics

Also the skyscraper forum that stet I think linked to upthread is really interesting. An early planning statement doesn't mention aluminium panels but zinc ones.

Absolutely, don't disagree with those points. I'm just pointing out that the council were formally describing it as cladding for insulation purposes in 2013/14 so as far as they were concerned at that time it was the primary purpose of the works.

Yes I know. I wasn't having a pop.

K&C chief exec sacked http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40362317

Paget-Brown needs to go.

http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/treasury-economics-george-osborne-and-grenfell-tower

I find myself agreeing with much of this Ann Pettifor piece, but not entirely sure about her her line of argument and conclusion - probably need to read it again later.

Poignant messages left by firemen at the scene of the #GrenfellTower fire. pic.twitter.com/U3yWbQYU5Y

— CameramanJim (@cameramanjimITV) June 22, 2017

http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/treasury-economics-george-osborne-and-grenfell-tower🕸

I find myself agreeing with much of this Ann Pettifor piece, but not entirely sure about her her line of argument and conclusion - probably need to read it again later.

I completely agree. The economic profession largely embraced austerity and not for any reasons that could be supported by evidence or observation. Dogma is the right word for it and their myopic stupidity is one of the root causes of all this.

yeah that article is booming

Thread on Grenfell and the death toll (79 is far, far too low) which is fuelling suspicion of a cover up (1/?)

— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) June 25, 2017

When all the scummer press were focusing on the faulty Hotpoint fridge/freezer the other day I couldn't help thinking it wouldn't have caught fire if it was plugged into an RCBO (which will trip on slightest phase neutral imbalance or overcurrent) circuit. And also all electrical appliances can become dangerous over time. I appreciate Hotpoint don't have a good record, but in social housing people who are poor are more likely to buy 2nd hand white goods.

Yeah, short of signs of arson or particularly foolhardy risks, focusing on the cause of this or any domestic fire is limited in use at best.

In this instance it's actively distracting

This is damning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p056nw0f

A fire expert inspecting another Rydon building.

I do like the way that man says the word "appalling"

Jesus, that clip. My dad worked on buildings like that in the 70s and has been banging on for days about how they must have opened up additional fire routes beyond just the cladding for it to have got to the core in the way it looks like it did in Grenfell. Which is exactly what that inspector is saying.

I actually thought that gas couldn't be Installed in Tower blocks in the uk.

well that's not a very can-do attitude!

In 2008 restrictions on types of gas cookers in all flats came into effect - but applied only to new purchases.

Focus on the cladding panels alone is missing the point. From https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/27/may-orders-national-inquiry-after-100-failure-rate-in-high-rise-cladding-tests?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

"The government has given limited information about how the tests on cladding samples are being carried out by the Building Research Establishment. The Department for Communities and Local Government said it was undertaking combustibility tests on core materials, but experts have warned that cladding systems also need to be tested as a whole, including insulation materials and design features such as fire breaks.

“You are testing a material in isolation,” said David Metcalfe, the head of the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology. “What we need to consider is how it performs as a system – it’s the cladding, it’s the support system, it’s the insulation, it’s the cavity barriers, it’s all of these things combined to determine what happens in a fire.”

Also worrying in that article is the report of blocks missing loads of fire doors. That's a complete absence of responsibility for fire safety by whichever landlord it is.

Javid was going in on the number of blocks in Camden missing fire doors, leading rw twitter to rage at high rise dwellers stealing and selling doors for scrap and alleging that camden is corbyn's favourite council (doesn't really work but is attempt to turn story into stick to beat labour).

Javid btw was on the list of landlord MPs who voted against tougher safety measures on landlords. Of course.

Police have said they don't expect to have a firm death toll *this year*.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/40434741

The actual fuck

What will change next year

Tory/DUP government on more strong and stable footing.

Why the fuck is it so hard?

Why the fuck is it so hard?

Because there could be lots of people who weren't officially living there and there is nothing left of them.

Probably true but I've noticed this before in the UK, these things move at a snail's pace, it took them 6 months to recover four bodies from that power station that collapsed last year.

Yeah but... Aren't they missed by someone? I'd reckon the completely unaccounted for are far outnumbered by those who people know of are missed because of this. xp

I guess people know who some of the missing people are but given the unofficial nature of their occupancy they're reluctant to come forward, even though the Met have stated there's an amnesty on those who were sub-letting.

There's a lot of leeway between firm death toll and expected approximate final figure, which they are avoiding for all they're worth since last week

"What will change next year"

"Compassion fatigue" was a hideous expression I read somewhere earlier. Nick Robinson likes to keep the "debate" going every day on the radio and tv, that of course this tragedy is not the government's fault you fules. Maybe through blunt repetition within a year everyone will be over this unfortunate episode, and sprinklers wouldn't have made any difference etc...

Have they even recovered all the bodies from the tower yet? Huge parts of the building must be extremely dangerous and unstable.

Given the news today about Hillsborough you'd think they'd realise that this isn't going to fade away. Angry, grieving families aren't the kind to lie down and swallow the official line.

Given the immigration politics festering in this country at the moment I'd guess that some friends or family of the deceased are afraid to even talk to anyone official.

Apologies if already posted but this is one of the better analyses of Grenfell and the actual housing issues at stake I've read, maybe the best. Comments shockingly good as well.

https://nearlylegal.co.uk/aftereffects/

Have they even recovered all the bodies from the tower yet? Huge parts of the building must be extremely dangerous and unstable.

A construction company is helping the authorities stabilise the structure.

At the cih housing conference today the invited housing minister was too busy to attend. First time a housing minister hasn't addressed the conference in 22 years. Government sent minister for communities and local government in his place. 10 minutes speech about how many thousands of homes are going to be built and how lots of cladding panels are failing lol independent fire tests.

Going to a specially convened discussion on grenfell this afternoon.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) has angered residents by excluding press and the public from its first cabinet meeting since the Grenfell Tower fire.

The council said tonight's cabinet meeting, due to start at 6.30pm, would be private due to "security and public safety concerns".

If they want a full blown riot, they just need to keep dehumanising the Grenfell tenants and acting like guilty, shady fuckers. I'm sure they will get one.

Meant to add earlier: the chair told the local government minister that there was time for questions but he muttered that he had to go and was off stage like nobody's business.

This judge fella seems like a terrible old Tory bastard, unsurprisingly.

The meeting broke up as the press were ordered to be allowed in by the judge.

Just insane the council (never mind May and the Government) haven't fallen over this.

Full statement from Nicholas Paget-Brown. Doesnt include resignation. pic.twitter.com/RBcwGAagSN

— #JusticeForGrenfell (@just4grenfell) June 29, 2017

This judge fella seems like a terrible old Tory bastard, unsurprisingly.

(no argument the single decision highlighted by the press was a bad one though, and i accept accusations of terrible old tory bastard-dom aren't helped by him looking like john major's lanky stunt double)

He sounds like an absolute cunt who is a violent struggle session short of knowing what a "decent human being" is. But at least he has admitted that it is going to be one of them type of inquiries that will only please the guilty parties and not the victims.

Yes, that was almost funny; "don't get yer hopes up."

2010/11: 106,000 preventative inspections by local authority health & safety inspectors; 2015/16: 3850 preventative inspections. Local authority health & safety preventative inspections down 96%

Looking at tomorrow's @thetimes front page, suddenly the Council's bizarre secrecy around their meeting today makes more sense pic.twitter.com/RbJU6Faxwh

— Felix Renicks (@ffffelix) June 29, 2017

Fielding Mellish? What Woody Allen film is that again?

Lol! Bananas

They will be shitting it about possibly getting arrested by 2046.

I haven't actually watched the Tsherassky as a whole for a while but I did then and holy fucking shit, it's amazing.

Eric H of this parish calls it one of the greatest horror movies ever made fwiw (apologies to Eric if I have that wrong)

Eh wrong thread obviously. Sorry. It's still a horror show.

Yes, appropriate..

Fielding Mellish? What Woody Allen film is that again?

― weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Thursday, June 29, 2017 11:27 PM

Could have sworn I read it on ILX but I can't find the link after a very rudimentary search - Rock Fielding-Mellen is the son of Amanda Fielding, Britain's greatest exponent of self-trepanation and who stood for parliament twice on the ticket of making trepanation a cornerstone of the NHS. His father was Joey Mellen, another trepanation exponent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Feilding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Mellen

you need a hole in the head like you need a hole in the head: the art and science of self-trepannation

^^^this is the thread

(the opinion of ppl close to the family seems to be that the mum is great and doesn't understand how her son turned out this badly, unless it's perhaps bcz he hasn't trepanned himself)

Ta, knew I'd read it somewhere.

That's NP-B quit now

And RF-M.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/03/britain-power-contempt-grenfell-labour-haringey-social-housing?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

However easy it is for pundits to conflate today’s Labour party with Jeremy Corbyn, to do so ignores the daily experience of people under many Labour councils that are his ideological opposite. Such as the zombie Blairites who run Haringey, and who bear as much resemblance to Corbyn’s Labour as Jive Bunny does to death metal.

Great angry piece from Chakrabortty that somebody should post to Mayor Khan, not that he'd gaf.

"The Heygate estate in Southwark: ‘nearly 1,200 social homes bulldozed, just 82 replacements built’. Photograph: London SE1 Community Website"

David Lammy is the MP for all of Haringey, right?

think catherine west (hornsey and wood green) may be MP for some of it

Yes, when I lived there Lynne Featherstone was the local MP and that was Hornsey & Wood Green.

Speaking at the 5th June Bruce Grove Residents Network meeting David Lammy responded to a question about gentrification by saying that he doesn't see evidence of it in Tottenham and admitted that he would happily 'take a bit of it' for the constituency. It was important the area got 'a bit of the cake' of economic growth in order to bring jobs, money and opportunities for people. Adding that regeneration must mean jobs locally.

yeah Lammy, turfing people out of their homes creates loads of new "opportunities" for people, like let's go live in housing association dump 80 miles away from my family ...yay!

Yes that is in fact exactly what he said.

Well of course he didn't say that, they never do say that. Instead they use the usual doublespeak when referring to gentrification schemes. Not that it makes any difference to those who are uprooted and fucked off for these oh so affordable housing schemes.

It's the difference between gentrification meaning a few restaurants and coffee shops popping up and gentrification as deliberate mass displacement.

yeah but as soon as you start saying petite gentrification - not so bad, it feels like the Blairite style legitimising of something that is like a disease.

mind you, when I say the language of gentrification is often cloaked in doublespeak. "Decanting" is a commonly used term on London regen schemes, which is quite blatantly ruthless.

you really need to let the class war breathe i find

Well maybe you'd have a similar pov if you lived in social housing for 90% of tr life. And .. class war! really?

it was a decanter joke

i got it

it was bad but i got it

Oh I'm very sorry TH. Totally took it as jibe

I just open opened a nice Malbec earlier as well.

the sophistication of my jokes can be deceptive on the palate. you think they're bad, but actually the hedz know what's up

'Decanting' has been in the social housing lexicon for 20 years (that I know of).

sorry for the humour bypass again. I'm having a shit day. The missus came back from a PIP appeal earlier, where she has been turned down and is in absolute pieces. I'm angry and agitated, and started drinking too early - bad combination of events.

Yes since at least 91 when I started. Xp re decanting

I wonder what the backhand deal will be on the profits the developer makes on their 50%

Sorry to hear that calzino. Shit news.

jesus that sucks calz

aw fuck calzino - so sorry

Sorry to hear that, man.

as this thread shows - things can always be much much worse. To win one of these tribunals you have to prove that the (non-medically trained) ATOS person didn't assess you correctly on the day - regardless of if you are currently very ill and struggling to stand up. You'd think that would be a piece of piss, but apparently it isn't for many people with degenerative conditions.

That's rough, Calzino, sorry.

Yes since at least 91 when I started. Xp re decanting

Before that, when my granny's house was getting done up, she was 'decanted' for a few months - that was the 80s, possibly the 70s.

(xp) I know someone who is stuck in this shitty process too, calz, it's fucking disgraceful.

Tell your friend to get a decent advocate if they can, the one my partner got was ineffective, rude and totally callous. When you have just gone through a very dehumanising process and they coldly say: "you've lost, your taxi will be here in 5 minutes, so set off now" it isn't good.

Sorry for bringing this to this thread, it is quite trivial in comparison to 100's burning to death in their homes needlessly.

Sorry to hear Calzino. We should really gulag these Tories.

Compilation of stories of the night here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/grenfell_voices was pretty hard to read

just finished reading it from top to bottom, am badly shaken. as a piece of publishing, that was extremely well done, though.

Devastating.

Great piece

Great disturbing and upsetting piece of writing. I'm glad I read it.

Dawn Foster continuing to quote from council meetings and residents thoughts (mostly anger at the authority of course) on Twitter for hours at a time.

https://architectsforsocialhousing.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/the-truth-about-grenfell-tower-a-report-by-architects-for-social-housing/

V big post-Grenfell news – residents of 242 flats in 4 blocks in SE London to be moved out after survey found buildings hugely unsafe

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) August 10, 2017

Again, they need to be re-housed in the exact same areas. Labour need to be on it.

Just watched Steve Richards of the Guardian, on BBC's Dateline programme, comparing Trump's response to the hurricanes to May's response to Grenfell Tower, only to be interrupted by the BBC presenter who felt the need to explain to viewers and fellow guests what Grenfell Tower was. Forgotten already down at the BBC obviously.

Dateline is shown on their BBC world news channel, so maybe they gave an explanation for people outside the UK?

That is a possibility.

Saved by an air pocket - this is the story of the only people to escape the top floor of Grenfell Tower. pic.twitter.com/Wx90prH4B4

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 13, 2017

I have been noticing a lot of hate-speak and general apologist obfuscation becoming more more prevalent recently. Well tbf Nick Robinson was doing it on the BBC, literally while the corpses were still burning in Grenfell. And that prick on the start of this thread that was stating (in a bullshit authoritative manner) that sprinklers wouldn't have made a difference, offering this highly intelligent analysis, roughly 10 hours into the disaster. Yet now there is talk that all high rise social housing urgently need sprinkler systems installing, and only 2% actually have them. Well, why waste the money on these things if they don't make any difference? Everyone knows water has absolutely no discernible effect on fire of course.

This was pretty well done:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Grenfell_21st_floor

Also want to note this development: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/19/grenfell-tower-inquiry-may-consider-individual-manslaughter-charges

Met police commander Stuart Cundy said he had met survivors and relatives of the dead on Monday night and told them he believed the final death toll might be slightly lower than the 80 people previously posited.

He said 60 people had been formally identified and CCTV showed 240 people had left the tower between midnight and 8am on the night of the fire. He added that cases of fraud coming to light, including people reported missing turning out to be fictitious, could be one factor leading to the final death toll being slightly lower.

Nevertheless, he said, there could still be people with no social or family connection outside the tower, and not on any official lists, who could still be within the high-rise. He declined to say by how many the death count could fall.

I always thought the numbers would be much higher, if anything. Considering the size of the building and the early a.m. time of the fire. And talk that significant numbers of the residents might not have been officially living there. I'm not saying it is wrong - because I'm not privy to any facts here - but my gut feeling is that it is more lying Met police bollocks, and they do have a long history of lying.

Grenfell Tower victim ordered to pay £100 compensation to dep leader of Kensington & Chelsea council after threatening him at 100-day vigil

— Tristan Kirk (@kirkkorner) October 6, 2017

The defendant in question, who lost a close relative in the fire, will be paying the compensation at £5 a week from his benefits

— Tristan Kirk (@kirkkorner) October 6, 2017

whut

There were recent reports that many survivors are still living in temp accommodation and eating from food banks, so that £20m that was raised is really making a difference. Go fucking charities!

More council violence:

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-10-16/no-place-of-safety

The Kensington & Chelsea brigade are properly monstrous pic.twitter.com/KFdQyV8EHa

— James Rhodes (@JRhodesPianist) October 23, 2017

Rich wankers are rich and wankers.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DOgnIBVW4AANvwD.jpg

I got a similar type of loathsome questonaire from my LA recently, asking me which disabled services I gaf about the least. Like for example which disabled children age groups deserve the least help (0-4 years old, 4-8 years old and so on).

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/08/grenfell-tower-more-costly-fire-resistant-cladding-plan-was-dropped?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

But a few months later the council decided Leadbitter wanted to spend too much on the refurbishment and put the contract out to tender to save £1.3m. It selected Rydon, which provided a lower price but fitted the building with combustible cladding which caught fire on 14 June 2017”.

A film shown about the Choucair (family) has caused considerable distress in the inquiry room.

It showed distressing images of people trapped in the building as it burned and around 20 people have got up and left the room, some breaking down in tears and wailing.

Outside in the foyer one person is having what appears to be a panic attack and is being assisted by one of the counsellors and several other people.

The counsel to the inquiry has described is as “a medical emergency”. The counsel to the inquiry has had to stop the film as a result of this. Even as someone not directly affected by the fire the images were shocking, so survivors’ reaction are completely understandable.

The counsel to the inquiry, Bernard Richmond, had said he would warn people if images of fire or the building were about to be shown but has admitted that he forgot.

Paramedics are now here treating the woman who collapsed and she seems to have gathered her composure and is being counselled in an anteroom.

It felt very quickly that the content of the film was too much for some people and there were pockets of commotion around the auditorium as people decided whether to leave or not.

But the film was allowed to run on for a couple of minutes more. This feels like a difficult moment for the inquiry so early on. Emotions are still incredibly raw and there will be more distressing testimony to come in the weeks and months ahead. How that is handled is now sure to be reviewed by the inquiry team.

The counsel to the inquiry, Bernard Richmond, had said he would warn people if images of fire or the building were about to be shown but has admitted that he forgot.

do better you fucking goon

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/08/grenfell-inquiry-mayor-calls-for-move-to-venue-nearer-tower

Posted mainly for the picture. I've been watching them slowly put this up, the white covering, and it does a good job of hiding the thing against the sky. But it sort of feels like they are covering it up. And the billboard at the top feels like lip service.

(I think there's a service planned and maybe covering it up like this might allow people to attend who might not if it was still just a charred stump)

Lots of luxury flats going up in the area too (TVC conversion, the huge university tower...) And other building work (Westfield extension...) They must all overlook Grenfell.

Was wondering why it had taken them so long to cover it - feels like something that should've happened well over six months ago.

This is an official response & complaint against Andrew O’Hagan’s article ‘The Tower’. Please read below and share widely. This has been written by Melanie Coles and fully supported by me, a bereaved family member and the #Grenfell community #thetower #article #grenfelltower pic.twitter.com/TeO8nZ6iya

— Noha Maher (@inohauk) June 3, 2018

There's currently a very serious fire going on on a new build estate in Barking. The buildings are clad in wood, which the developer has been telling residents was fire resistant.

jesus, is it a tower block construction?

Looks about six floors high from what I can see.

https://news.sky.com/story/100-firefighters-tackle-six-floor-fire-at-flats-in-barking-east-london-11738455

Wooden balconies by the looks of things.

that balcony material looking extremely flammable from the pic.

just heard a witness on the radio say something about no alarms going off.

the developer has been telling residents was fire resistant

I imagine 'fire resistant' in wood is much like my experience of 'water resistant' in clothing; it may resist a very brief exposure, or else a longer, but minimal exposure, but beyond that it soaks through. iow, it is a worthless marketing term, meant to suggest far more than it says.

I once worked on a new build childrens hospice that was mostly made out of wood, with some steel cladding and breeze. I kept commenting to colleagues that you wouldn't fancy the structures chances in a fire, but it was fire resistant wood blah blah someone said .. Part of it burned to the ground only a few years after it opened. I was mortified when it was reported an electrical fault was the cause.. but then it turned out to be a fault on on the high voltage supply side of the plant room, which we was nothing to do with thankfully.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/pms-chief-of-staff-did-not-act-on-multiple-warnings-about-fire-safety-in-months-before-grenfell-new-letters-show-61883

heads will roll ... by about 2040 when most of the criminally negligent bodies are already half dead.

Saw the tweet with that story when I woke up - have other places picked up on this?

Grenfell report to be released..... 30 October.

hollow lol

Lunchtime update from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry:

- Rydon manager gloated about being 'quids in' as he discussed profit boost company would get through switching cladding to deadly ACM pic.twitter.com/qBmuZuamep

— Peter Apps (@PeteApps) September 7, 2020

https://i.imgur.com/78x2Q8b.jpg

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/16/fire-test-for-grenfell-foam-cladding-panels-was-rigged-admits-ex-employee

It's bizarre how little noise the Grenfell enquiry is making when stuff like this is happening.

i would like to understand more about how the intense anger and extensively held sentiment of 'never again' at the time translates over time into something that seems to be treated with indifference.

• what I might call 'benign news churn'; headlines today supplant headlines of yesterday
• specific news displacement (covid, trump, brexit)
• calculated news displacement - it's baked into the ideology of many newspapers/commentators and their surround nexus of politics to not really care, and may be in their interests not to give it salience
• indifference to representing technical process and arguments in the news (probably best summed up by a flagship BBC programme - I think it may even have been Newsnight - saying that they wouldn't go into the technical details of a Brexit argument because it was 'a bit nerdy').
• complete non-existence of sustained campaigning journalism, unless you count the ceaseless campaigning of some papers against Europe or Labour, say. I think those examples are just built into the editorial/business model.
• a psychological condition of fatigue among the public (i'm always wary of this - awareness and interest seems to me to be such a function of media salience (eg Brexit) that I don't see how fatigue can be a function of its *lack* of salience.
• aversion to the horror of it, don't want to think about people dying in a tower block (i felt the overriding emotion at the time was anger)
• 'one of those things that happens' - nothing to be done (perhaps a corollary of the lack of sustained campaigning journalism informing people that it was directly caused by decisions made by nameable people and organisations)

absence of obvious path citizens can take to effect change would be a big part of it, I'd imagine

Like, once concerned people have signed the digital petition and expressed anger on social media, I don't know if it's clear what they can do *next*. Write to their MP? My MP was tweeting the above story at breakfast, he's already engaged. But where to place that anger next? And if it is not put into action, does it dissipate?

calculated news displacement - it's baked into the ideology of many newspapers/commentators and their surround nexus of politics to not really care, and may be in their interests not to give it salience

xpost well this is it. my very broad brushstroke on the social function of the media prior to the upheavals brought about by the internet and 24 hour news is to be the eyes and mouthpiece of their readership. in some respects the fact this ever overlapped with the key business model of 'keeping the ads apart' is a bit of a mystery, unless you assume that people were interested and willing to pay for a newspaper that found out things beyond that which was obvious - muckraking, investigative journalism, newsgathering - and also the professionalisation of that group.

Point about the 'mouthpiece' bit, is that it allowed newspapers to amplify editorially their readership's concerns to push back against public and private institutions. This view has mutated to a degree to the point where rather than 'amplify' we would say they 'create' their readership's concerns to have power over the rule-setting space of government.

I think a lot of the above is also bloody naive - newspaper ownership self-interest, readership and politics have always uneasily co-existed, and the editorial decision about what their readership cares about ≠ some sort of objective social good.

However, to your point stevie, in terms of that mouthpiece role, social media has given a lot more voice, but to a lot less end - it's less focused and amplified, there's more frustration in the process, maybe? It's become axiomatic that awareness - the 'eyes' part of that equation - has become a lot more editorially confused and undifferentiated, for good and bad. An editorial team does not decide what you see in the morning.

Started this post before a meeting, had the meeting, and now feel it's become a bit rambly to no end. so just hit 'post' i guess?

This is giving much too good faith but is probably the closest reason. The lives of those who died at Grenfell fundamentally don’t matter to the country as a whole, they were the wrong kind of people. You see this pattern repeated over the decades and even centuries, if the deaths at Hillsborough mattered to anyone outside Liverpool, then the Sun would have ceased to exist long ago. If Grenfell was to matter, then Amber Rudd wouldn’t have been welcomed back to cabinet six months after having to resign by the press, and there would be more interrogation of the fact that ordinary people were burning replica Grenfell Towers in their bonfires and sharing the videos. It’s all built on structural racism from the ground up but it comes down to the same thing: their lives didn’t matter to the government or to the press, and therefore the public.
― scampus fugit (gyac), Tuesday, 17 November 2020 11:28 bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, Hillsborough is an important comparison isn't it. There did seem to be a lot of widespread anger at Grenfell (and again, through what medium could i possibly know that - that mixture of the people i know, my social media vectors, and the mainstream media, and what sort of objective synthesis is *that*? but anyway).

it comes down partly to a question of agency. i'm not sure if this is even a meaningful statement, but i tend towards most people caring - ie 'something should be done' - if you took them through Grenfell, or asked them specifically.

but yes, i have *somewhat* benign view of 'people' probably based on my socio-economic (and indeed gender) definition.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry podcast still going strong, even after Eddie Mair's departure:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p066rd9t/episodes/downloads

It won gold at the British Podcast Awards but is getting zero promotion by the corporation.

There did seem to be a lot of widespread anger at Grenfell (and again, through what medium could i possibly know that - that mixture of the people i know, my social media vectors, and the mainstream media, and what sort of objective synthesis is *that*? but anyway).

Grenfell will be back, but not yet. British media is exceptionally bad at keeping sustained attention on slow-developing things.

There are a lot of factors behind that, but two key ones are the rules around court reporting - effectively, during a trial you can only report what was said in court on the day and it's very hard to give colour/context/background = often boring stories – and the public's attention, which moves on to things with clearer edges to them and ignores the boring/confusing ones.

This isn't just a Grenfell thing, it's playing out right now in eg the Assange hearings, and people paying close attention to them have despaired at the paucity of coverage it's getting. However, I'd expect them to go big on Jan 4 when the hearing returns and they can add in all the other stuff. (Although Brexit might well take up all the oxygen at that point).

Governments know all this, which is why they drape an inquiry over things they want to buy time on, or get the public to stop caring about. Even though inquiries don't have quite the same reporting restrictions, there's still this sense of "we'll talk about this when the inquiry reports back".

80% of the time, by the time the inquiry reports back, the public doesn't care any more and the government gets away with it. 20% of the time it doesn't. (And if they're certain it's going to fall into the 20%, they do other things to nobble it, like with Chilcott. Hillsborough is a special case but cuts similarly – the Taylor report bought them a bit of time, and did lead to real change, it just avoided actual justice)

I think Grenfell is in the 20% camp. Not just because of the genuine outrage and anger at the events, and the clear villains of the piece, but more coldly because its impact cuts across a lot of society. There are a lot of better-off people in cladded buildings unable to sell their dangerous homes – 20,000 buildings directly, more indirectly. There are very well-off people realising quite how shoddy construction standards have become, too. Sunday Times did a big piece just the week on a big Richmond estate that had a building burn down rapidly and it was all down to shit building regs and inspections, and one of the country's biggest builders was at fault.

I've been trying hard to avoid fire metaphors here, but this has all the hallmarks of something big biding its time.

great post stet, and of course - smacks forehead - i'd forgotten about the court reporting. it was interesting watching the attacking the devil documentary on the Insight team's investigation into Thalidomide, the gyrations they had to perform to manage that sustained campaign. And indeed my point about campaigning came directly from Harold Evans saying in that documentary that the moment when people internally are potentially getting bored with a campaign is exactly the moment you shouldn't give up.

aside from Hillsborough, the other example that springs to mind- for a number of reasons- is bloody sunday tbh

at the end of a marathon effort lessons will have been learned and apologies will issue, the structural (and indeed deliberate/necessary) underpinnings of why these things happen to the people they happen to, where they happen will have transformed sufficiently such that the govt of 2045 can confidently say "never again" and no individuals will be to blame because the situational aspects will have been ignored, disputed or obfuscated for long enough for time and distance to have done their work.

Yes I have a lot to say on that too ofc but I’m lacking Stet’s faith in the process given the government are trying to make Bloody Sunday retroactively legal and the press are doing a lot of work to cover it for them.

yeah I've got no faith in the process — it has evolved as if by design to help cover things up and smother outrage. But that only works if people allow it, and I have a degree of hope that this won't happen in this case.

stonking package on the 10 debunking the social housing “charter” but weirdly nothing about the current inquiry. couldn’t find a link to the video on the BBC News site.

very good and angering summary of the corporate and regulatory responsibility for grenfell by anoosh chakelian in the NS.

Lunchtime update from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry:

Cavity barrier manufacturer says installation of barriers on Grenfell was "some of the worst I have ever seen" pic.twitter.com/L39pnd07dR

— Peter Apps (@PeteApps) March 9, 2021

Chris Mort carried out an examination of the way his product had been installed after the fire in 2018. Says he believes there were areas where the products either weren't fitted at all or stuck on with sillicone instead of fixed with a bracket

unfuckingbelievable. You don't need to be a barriers expert to know that sticking important safety components with fucking silicone is rough as.

well of course hes going to say that, its his product.

I wouldn't expect lying at a public inquiry is beyond the realms of possibility but if the barriers really were stuck on with silicone rather than with the brackets, then he'd right calling it a cowboy installation.