Fire at Grenfell Tower in London

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.