Fire at Grenfell Tower in London

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.