UK Politics Mega-thread - Page 361

On June 15 2017 23:58 KwarK wrote:
God help us if we get Boris.

On June 16 2017 05:46 TheDwf wrote:
What specific event could trigger new elections?

On June 17 2017 02:03 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
So Lily Allen (yeah I know... the singer, but apparently she grew up in the area and still lives close to the tower and watched it burn and has been part of the community effort for 3 days now) is raising hell on twitter about why there is still no higher death count reported, saying they are trying slowly build up the real numbers because they are too horrific too release at once as it would spark huge outrage. Local rumors are 100+ it seems.

Do you think this could be true? I mean by now they should know have indexed who of the tenants hasn't reported in yet and have a pretty good view of who is not there right? Yes remains will be very hard to identify which is the reasoning the officials are using for not increasing the numbers stated but anyone who is still missing should pretty much be assumed dead by now. Do you think this could spark a major unrest if it's really so many dead? Feels like there is lots of slumbering anger.

On June 17 2017 03:39 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
I don't understand why the media is going after the contractors. If they operated to within building regulations, then it is the building regulations at fault. If the council and their managing company decided to not install fire sprinklers and fire exits, then it is hardly the contracting company's fault that none were installed. Still though, the estimates of fire sprinkler are something like £120 000 for the entire block, when the cladding costed £2.6m, really makes you wonder.

One reason why the Grenfell tragedy has shaken so many of us is because it exposes so much of what's wrong with the way this place has been run for years.
We'll have to wait for a forensic examination of all the many decisions that turned a series of risks into an appalling catastrophe.
But although the trigger may still be unclear, it is reasonable to identify a number of underlying causes.
Part of the background is austerity that has been particularly acute for local government.
But austerity seems to have become particularly toxic in a system where responsibility for vital safety decisions is so diffuse: we have ministers in charge of regulations, councillors funding an arms length management company, and a management company placing a refurbishment contract with the cheapest bidder.
There is naturally huge anger that the government didn't ban the kind of cladding used at Grenfell, when such cladding is illegal for use on high rise structures in the US (as the Times reports today).
Similarly there is horror that the government never made it obligatory for the fire safety standards that apply to new buildings to be enforced at older blocks - that such improvements are only recommended, not obligatory.
But such lax or light touch regulation only becomes fatal in a system - such as we have - designed to drive down costs and save money, not to put the safety of people first.
It is a system in which those working for all the interconnected bodies that made the refurbishment decisions and gave the wrong safety advice to tenants are able to say - as if that makes it alright - "we followed the rules".
It is a system in which identifying anyone who can be proved to be ultimately responsible for what happened may be impossible.
And as we saw in the banks before the financial crisis, when people can take reckless decisions safe in the knowledge they can't be held to account, reckless decisions get taken.
The horrific corollary of a faceless, irresponsible system of public-housing governance is that many of the poor and vulnerable people who died in the fire are not even being given the respect of formal identification as victims - because they live on the fringes of the state, and the authorities seem unable to be confident they even existed, let alone that they have died.
There is a social contract between those of us lucky enough to have voices that are heard and those who don't that we should not put them in harms way. Grenfell seems the most grotesque breach of that contract in my lifetime. It shames us all.

On June 17 2017 19:17 MoonfireSpam wrote:
The stuff around contractors and building regs is just the end product of politics and management practice all over the public sector (maybe its just how business works in general, I don't know). Cut cut cut, until someone disasterous happens, no single person is actually accountable because everyone collectively caused harm.

Other spin for the Corbyn thing is "only 28%" oppose his idea.