Grenfell Tower Culpability Thread.

IronGiant

It was a fridge...   

Just an off the wall thought that had it been a tumble dryer with a known fault waiting to be fixed, the media would have been all over it like a rash.

krish

With property rights should come property responsibilities. It's not class warfare, not socialism, not communism.

George Osborne also tried to clamp down on Kensington and Chelsea's out of control buy-to-leave phenomenon, mostly involving properties purchased by companies owned by Russian oligarchs and Arab Princes, and deliberately left empty. The phenomenon is clearly against the public interest, economically and socially, and so targeted punitive actions or compulsory purchase / eminent domain powers are usually exercised in the public interest.

Nowhere else in the capital or the country compares to the borough of Kensington and Chelsea
- other 'ghost towns' resulted from condemnation not speculation.

Pacifico

Not sure what questions you think need answers as at the moment this cladding is perfectly legal and within building code. The only way this company could be liable is if the Council specified a different cladding and the Company didnt follow the contract.

Well this building was built originally by the Council with only one fire escape and one elevator for 2 floors and the refurbishment was contracted out by the council, so sorry but I dont share your opinion that this is all the fault of the private sector.

silent ninja

The fire started at 12.54am. Yet for hours upon hours people were told to stay in their rooms. Everyone saw the Syrian student on the BBC who lost his brother in the fire. His brother died at 5am from smoke inhalation - that's 4 whole hours since the fire started. Can you believe the level of failures here? Where was the smoke alarm?

The initial advice to stay put is directly responsible for 10s of deaths. People could have used the stairwell, but according to procedure fire services and police gave advice to stay in their rooms - what would ultimately be their coffin.

The first band of fire fighters arrived about 1.37am. However, there are also reports from eye witnesses that numerous fire trucks took 2 hours to reach the scene because they couldn't get access. In the meantime, police were forcing people back from the side of the building that was not on fire. They could see lots of people in their rooms needing help, but were met with force. Some were assembling mattresses so people could jump. Those bystanders watched for hours as they saw people screaming out the windows, then dying one by one.

I'm astonished people were dying 4-5 hours after the fire started. That's an enormous of time to get people out. The emergency people responded bravely and stuck to their training and protocols. But nevertheless, there is a catastrophic failure of procedure here which has directly killed people.

Pacifico

I agree - the enquiry needs to look at far more than the Councils decision over which cladding to use.

tapzilla2k

From what I can see the local residents, Religious groups and volunteers from a wide area have got on and organised things. The Council has been nowhere to be seen or at least those in management positions. A GP from the area on what he did to help -
Ahmed Kazmi: A GP’s experience of the Grenfell Tower fire – The BMJ

If anyone is attempting to hijack this for their own ends it's the likes of the Socialist Workers Party and others on the left and right (from what I've seen on twitter, not here).

Lammy sounded quite genuine in his anguish -
‘Heartbroken’ MP David Lammy becomes tearful remembering friend who died in Grenfell Tower fire


It's understandable that people want somebody to blame, but it is going to take a while to figure out how and why the fire spread as it did, then move onto looking at how the refurbishment was carried out from the initial planning stages all the way to completion. There will be a whole chain of decisions that will have to be looked at in detail.

It's already politicised going by the Grenfell action blog and local reactions. The horse has already bolted from the stable on that one.  

The best thing we can all do is keep our anger in check. I guess the problem is with Parliament not yet officially back up and running there isn't a place for a proper debate to be held where Ministers can be held to account on the immediate issues to hand.

I believe the Fire Brigade have been recommending that manufacturers install fire proof backing to Fridges to contain fires for a few years now. I think we need to wait and see what the Fire Brigade say about the cause of the initial fire and that will no doubt take time.

apolloa

This interviewer on the BBC is a pretty good example of the despicable behaviour I've seen since the Brexit campaign. I think the BBC license fee must be scrapped now as they sure as hell are anything but 'impartial'!!

Ruperts slippers

The council put the contract out to tender with specs, negotiations take place, private and public sector come together to make a decision on costs, timescales, products etc, etc. No one here has a get out of jail free card. The over riding point is, an investigation may well effect a change in safety, product development, legislation, communication etc, etc.. Saying he, she or they told me to do it, is not good enough, same argument was used post ww2, Hillsborough, etc, time for people, organisations to face the music, take ownership of actions. Some actual good may come out of it.

Furthermore, this scapegoating of the tenants reaction post event is disgusting, what do people expect, a pragmatic stroke of the chin.. I don't think so..

IronGiant

I did see one piece where the BBC were saying the Council were putting people up in Hotels and paying for it. Also that the Council were holding planning meetings on where best to house children of school age so that they could attend school with the least disruption but that had to be abandoned when some protesters started damaging property and they "had" to leave.

(my sarcastic italics)

This article seems to suggest the Police tried to evacuate the building so perhaps I was being a bit harsh. Note, as seems commonplace in news feeds these days, clicking on the link fires up an embedded video link.

Grenfell Tower Fire: Protesters Storm Kensington Town Hall And March On Downing Street | HuffPost UK

krish

They've been much rougher on Jezza ever since he became party leader. Most hostile of all, political editor Laura Kuenssberg. TM meanwhile had quite a honeymoon period with the BBC, from winning the party leadership and becoming PM, until the snap election ballsup, when her bubble burst.