Fire at Grenfell Tower in London

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 >:(