Fire at Grenfell Tower in London

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