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Post by steppenwolf on Sept 5, 2024 7:07:58 GMT
The results of the enquiry have now been published - after 7 years - and they've made a very long list of the people who are to blame for the fire. They seem to have blamed everybody they can think of (including the fire brigade which is a bit unfair IMO) but there are two strange omissions:
Firstly no blame is laid at the door of the tenants. Yet the flats were massively over-occupied with many being illegally sublet. There were many electrical fires because the electrical system was overloaded with sockets having many adaptors on them to power several appliances. Some tenants were storing gas cylinders for some reason. Basically they were breaking their tenancy agreements. They were good at complaining to the tenants' managing company about the shortcomings of the building but refused to recognise that in some cases they were the cause of the problems. It's like Hillsborough all over again where everyone was shit-scared to blame the fans when they had the primary culpability for the crush that killed so many.
Secondly there's no mention of the politicians who let in vast numbers of dirt poor immigrants and then expected the councils to house them. It's no surprise that the housing they were provided with was pretty basic. It's pretty nauseating listening to Strmer and Sunak at PMQs competing for the moral high ground when their parties are culpable for the current overcrowding of this country - especially London.
Our politicians and the tenants bear the primary responsibility for what happened. Yet no one has the balls to say it. So we'll have another Hillsborough situation where the tenants keep demanding criminal prosecutions for decades and no one is ever convicted of anything.
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Post by Dan Dare on Sept 5, 2024 7:57:11 GMT
Yes it's true that any suggestion that some part of the blame ought to be placed on the tenants has been carefully airbrushed out of the final report - recall the Afghan clan whose dozen or so members were registered to a single flat and who were subsequently given three separate dwellings - but then that was never part of the terms of reference of the inquiry anyway.
However and even though the Grenfell episode has already cost over a billion pounds so far, with the inquiry itself costing over £200 million, we can be sure that the publication of the report and Starmer's abject groveling at PMQ yesterday signal the start of the real Grenfell Gold Rush. In assigning blame, the inquiry has been very particular in heaping most of it on culprits with exceptionally deep pockets, including central government going back to 1991.
One interesting aspect of the report is the verification of the ethic background of the deceased, which will of course mirror the ethnicities of those in line for the lions share of any future payouts. Of the 72 fatalities, just over half (37) were first generation immigrants, a further 27 were their second-generation offspring while ethnic (white) Britons accounted for just eight.
Needless to say, the inquiry and the report have nothing whatsoever to say about the demographic make-up of the resident population of Grenfell Tower, nor do they (or anyone else) question how much more of London's stock of social housing is occupied by immigrants and their descendants. To do that is to touch the third rail of politics.
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Post by sandypine on Sept 5, 2024 7:58:11 GMT
The results of the enquiry have now been published - after 7 years - and they've made a very long list of the people who are to blame for the fire. They seem to have blamed everybody they can think of (including the fire brigade which is a bit unfair IMO) but there are two strange omissions: Firstly no blame is laid at the door of the tenants. Yet the flats were massively over-occupied with many being illegally sublet. There were many electrical fires because the electrical system was overloaded with sockets having many adaptors on them to power several appliances. Some tenants were storing gas cylinders for some reason. Basically they were breaking their tenancy agreements. They were good at complaining to the tenants' managing company about the shortcomings of the building but refused to recognise that in some cases they were the cause of the problems. It's like Hillsborough all over again where everyone was shit-scared to blame the fans when they had the primary culpability for the crush that killed so many. Secondly there's no mention of the politicians who let in vast numbers of dirt poor immigrants and then expected the councils to house them. It's no surprise that the housing they were provided with was pretty basic. It's pretty nauseating listening to Strmer and Sunak at PMQs competing for the moral high ground when their parties are culpable for the current overcrowding of this country - especially London. Our politicians and the tenants bear the primary responsibility for what happened. Yet no one has the balls to say it. So we'll have another Hillsborough situation where the tenants keep demanding criminal prosecutions for decades and no one is ever convicted of anything. I have stopped watching or listening to anything to do with Grenfell because the focus is so narrow. The pressure on Councils to get things done was enormous and the influx was relentless. They were all one and two bedroomed flats which would indicate a residency of two to four people per flat yet there was estimated to be at least 600 people living there indicating an average of 5 per flat of 120 flats (although one report says 129 flats). This is serious and dangerous overcrowding yet as you say this part has been ignored but must have contributed in part to the number who lost their lives. The methods of sub letting should have been investigated and if gas cylinders were present this indicates one bedroom being used as a bedsit with cooking facilities. I suppose it was not considered in the report as it would have shown how government and councils had to ignore overcrowding as a matter of policy to ensure that there was no indication how government immigration policy was creating the very slum type accommodation we had just spent 70 years trying to eliminate. |
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ginnyg2
Full Member
Don't blame me - I voted for someone else.
Posts: 408
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Post by ginnyg2 on Sept 5, 2024 8:10:26 GMT
I'm still waiting for someone to reveal the cause of the fire in the first place.
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Post by sandypine on Sept 5, 2024 8:14:29 GMT
I'm still waiting for someone to reveal the cause of the fire in the first place. There is a very detailed account of the fire brigade arriving to an electrical fire in a kitchen in a flat and that the fire had spread to the window. The first reports of a burning fridge being pushed out of a window have disappeared. |
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Post by The Squeezed Middle on Sept 5, 2024 8:14:38 GMT
Absolutely no one, aside from the official tenants who were actually living in Grenfell Tower should get any compo.
I bet they do though.
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Post by Dan Dare on Sept 5, 2024 8:16:24 GMT
Absolutely no one, aside from the official tenants who were actually living in Grenfell Tower should get any compo. I bet they do though. They already have.
Just to mention one such payment, the interim compensation award of £150 million in 2023 had over 900 beneficiaries.
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ginnyg2
Full Member
Don't blame me - I voted for someone else.
Posts: 408
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Post by ginnyg2 on Sept 5, 2024 9:34:34 GMT
I'm still waiting for someone to reveal the cause of the fire in the first place. There is a very detailed account of the fire brigade arriving to an electrical fire in a kitchen in a flat and that the fire had spread to the window. The first reports of a burning fridge being pushed out of a window have disappeared. Sounds about right. |
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Post by steppenwolf on Sept 6, 2024 7:15:09 GMT
The other really annoying thing was what the useless Starmer said after PMQs. He had the cheek to say that this tragedy revealed this country "as one where the voices of working class people and people of colour have been repeatedly ignored and dismissed. A country where the tenants of a social housing block in one of the richest parts of the land are treated like second class citizens and shamefully dismissed." linkThis is total nonsense. There is absolutely no racial element to this at all. In the year before the fire over £10 million was spent in maintenance of the block. And if the tenants were routinely ignored by the Tenants Management Organisation that's probably typical of every leasehold block of flats in the country. I used to own a flat in London and getting the management to actual do anything was very frustrating - and if they ever did anything they did it on the cheap and charged the leaseholders a fortune. That's normal. You don't have to Black to get that treatment. Also this type of talk is absolutely certain to inflame race relations - jut like the false claims that some people have made about the Southport maniac - and have been locked up for. Maybe we should lock up Starmer. Also the obsession with the cladding is short-sighted. This exact type of cladding is used in upmarket blocks of flats in London and all over the world (including a super-expensive block in Dubai). It was not a cheap option. The problem was that the cladding was intended to by isolated from the flats. It was intended that no fire in the cladding could get inside the flat - but the cladding was incorrectly fitted by the contractors. And any cladding is flammable - it's just a matter of how high the temperature has to be. |
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Post by sandypine on Sept 6, 2024 7:45:15 GMT
The other really annoying thing was what the useless Starmer said after PMQs. He had the cheek to say that this tragedy revealed this country "as one where the voices of working class people and people of colour have been repeatedly ignored and dismissed. A country where the tenants of a social housing block in one of the richest parts of the land are treated like second class citizens and shamefully dismissed." linkThis is total nonsense. There is absolutely no racial element to this at all. In the year before the fire over £10 million was spent in maintenance of the block. And if the tenants were routinely ignored by the Tenants Management Organisation that's probably typical of every leasehold block of flats in the country. I used to own a flat in London and getting the management to actual do anything was very frustrating - and if they ever did anything they did it on the cheap and charged the leaseholders a fortune. That's normal. You don't have to Black to get that treatment. Also this type of talk is absolutely certain to inflame race relations - jut like the false claims that some people have made about the Southport maniac - and have been locked up for. Maybe we should lock up Starmer. Also the obsession with the cladding is short-sighted. This exact type of cladding is used in upmarket blocks of flats in London and all over the world (including a super-expensive block in Dubai). It was not a cheap option. The problem was that the cladding was intended to by isolated from the flats. It was intended that no fire in the cladding could get inside the flat - but the cladding was incorrectly fitted by the contractors. And any cladding is flammable - it's just a matter of how high the temperature has to be. That does beg the question as regards what was the District Surveyor and his team doing if the cladding was fitted incorrectly. Having briefly inspected the fitment of cladding way back in the late 80s on a refurbished office block there were chances of about five different interested parties routinely inspecting the work of the cladding sub contractor from the main contractor, the client representatives, the architect, independent inspectors and District surveyor. Getting it wrong was pretty difficult. |
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Post by piglet on Sept 6, 2024 9:43:16 GMT
How was Grenfell racist?, was that block for whites as well. ? Is there not blocks with cladding that still exist, and are flammable, not filled with white people as well? Be white be a racist ba sterd. Black racism at its best.
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Post by Pacifico on Sept 6, 2024 10:43:37 GMT
I'm surprised that the Fire Brigade are still issuing their 'stay-put' advice in the event of a fire. Staying in a burning building is the last thing I would do whoever was issuing any advice to the opposite.
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Post by Dogburger on Sept 6, 2024 10:49:10 GMT
The other really annoying thing was what the useless Starmer said after PMQs. He had the cheek to say that this tragedy revealed this country "as one where the voices of working class people and people of colour have been repeatedly ignored and dismissed. A country where the tenants of a social housing block in one of the richest parts of the land are treated like second class citizens and shamefully dismissed." linkThis is total nonsense. There is absolutely no racial element to this at all. In the year before the fire over £10 million was spent in maintenance of the block. And if the tenants were routinely ignored by the Tenants Management Organisation that's probably typical of every leasehold block of flats in the country. I used to own a flat in London and getting the management to actual do anything was very frustrating - and if they ever did anything they did it on the cheap and charged the leaseholders a fortune. That's normal. You don't have to Black to get that treatment. Also this type of talk is absolutely certain to inflame race relations - jut like the false claims that some people have made about the Southport maniac - and have been locked up for. Maybe we should lock up Starmer. Also the obsession with the cladding is short-sighted. This exact type of cladding is used in upmarket blocks of flats in London and all over the world (including a super-expensive block in Dubai). It was not a cheap option. The problem was that the cladding was intended to by isolated from the flats. It was intended that no fire in the cladding could get inside the flat - but the cladding was incorrectly fitted by the contractors. And any cladding is flammable - it's just a matter of how high the temperature has to be. That does beg the question as regards what was the District Surveyor and his team doing if the cladding was fitted incorrectly. Having briefly inspected the fitment of cladding way back in the late 80s on a refurbished office block there were chances of about five different interested parties routinely inspecting the work of the cladding sub contractor from the main contractor, the client representatives, the architect, independent inspectors and District surveyor. Getting it wrong was pretty difficult. As someone who has fitted cladding I know it can be fitted wrong quite easily . All the above will meet up on site have a sit down for an hour then do a quick lap of the site from the ground .Ive never seen any of these guys on the scaffolding . But I dont think the fitting of the cladding is the issue here but the materials used . What hasn't been mentioned in the report is why there was a rush to clad anything that didn't move in the name of the green agenda which led to unsuitable buildings being clad in the first place . If they were suitable for cladding what materials should have been used ? If they haven't answered that then all roads lead back to the climate zealots . |
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Post by steppenwolf on Sept 6, 2024 12:54:01 GMT
That does beg the question as regards what was the District Surveyor and his team doing if the cladding was fitted incorrectly. Having briefly inspected the fitment of cladding way back in the late 80s on a refurbished office block there were chances of about five different interested parties routinely inspecting the work of the cladding sub contractor from the main contractor, the client representatives, the architect, independent inspectors and District surveyor. Getting it wrong was pretty difficult. As someone who has fitted cladding I know it can be fitted wrong quite easily . All the above will meet up on site have a sit down for an hour then do a quick lap of the site from the ground .Ive never seen any of these guys on the scaffolding . But I dont think the fitting of the cladding is the issue here but the materials used . What hasn't been mentioned in the report is why there was a rush to clad anything that didn't move in the name of the green agenda which led to unsuitable buildings being clad in the first place . If they were suitable for cladding what materials should have been used ? If they haven't answered that then all roads lead back to the climate zealots . Yes. The cladding was fitted primarily to make the building more energy efficient - although some say it was fitted to make the tower less of an eyesore for people who had to look at it. Even so this cladding passed building regulations at the time and - when fitted correctly - was relatively safe. The incredibly expensive 35 storey tower block in Dubai ("The Address") had exactly the same cladding - which also caught fire - but basically only the cladding was damaged. None of the flats were damaged and no one was injured because the cladding was correctly fitted. That's the trouble with this whole witch hunt over Grenfell. A lot of things have to go wrong for a catastrophe to happen, which is why no one will ever be convicted for this catastrophe - just like Hillsborough. I used to live in a tower block in Holland a few decades ago. It was cheap but I liked it - and the view over the countryside was superb. I have no idea if it even had any cladding but the thing was that most of the occupants were leaseholders too, so it was taken care of - nobody pissed in the lift or sprayed graphiti everywhere. The problem at Grenfell was that letting out a 70's tower block to a bunch of benefits scroungers was an accident waiting to happen. And the tenants were a bunch of difficult people. Even when offered alternative accommodation they turned it down if it wasn't in the same area. Sorry but you have to be a multi-millionaire to live in this area of London. Get saving. |
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Post by Red Rackham on Sept 6, 2024 13:43:53 GMT
I'm still waiting for someone to reveal the cause of the fire in the first place. I believe a faulty fridge overheated and burst into flames in flat 16 which was on the fourth floor, occupied by 'Behailu Kebede'. |
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