Fire at Grenfell Tower in London

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.