Labour ?

MDS posted:

I agree, Bruce.  Corbyn seemed to be able to relate to the people he met, giving some a hug, whereas TM appeared to remain detached and aloof.  There do seem to be worrying signs of growing social unrest.  As you say, I hope Labour avoid any temptation to add to that by making political capital of the disaster, and I also hope that Corbyn uses his influence with the local population to ensure that protests remain peaceful. 

100% to all the above & Bruce's post.  I'm very very disappointed with TM responses.  She really really does need to get a grip of this PDQ and/or appoint someone who can.    The K&C council should be taking the lead but where are they ???  

This inept responses from central & local government has fueled real & justified anger in the local community,  but busting up the town hall does  not help in the slightest.    And neither do the SWP & the other 'activists' that have joined with & used this tragedy as a means of furthering their various protests. 

For those that seem to think it's acceptable to refer to the PM in such derogatory language I can only start to imagine the outrage of my friends who lean left if I had described Diane Abbot in such terms  

Drewy posted:

You read too much social media and take in too much of what the news channels are putting out. 

Keep digging and carry on. The more you continue with this stuff, the more desperate you appear.

The Strat (Fender) posted:

For those that seem to think it's acceptable to refer to the PM in such derogatory language I can only start to imagine the outrage of my friends who lean left if I had described Diane Abbot in such terms  

I lean pretty far to the left and I couldn't give a shit about what you say about Abbott - after all, she's scarcely more competent than the PM, is she?

You need to do a bit better than this, Lindsay.

Okay regardless of competence if I had referred to a work colleague in the same manner I would have been dismissed - and rightly so.  

Mike-B posted:

  And neither do the SWP & the other 'activists' that have joined with & used this tragedy as a means of furthering their various protests. 

Mike, the SWP are as despised on the left as they are by mainstream politics.

Ever since the rape scandals of earlier this decade, their membership has shrunk to a couple of hundred and they are in constant warfare with other elements of what's amusingly known as the 'sub-atomic left' (tiny parties constanly splitting into even tinier parties due to factionalism). Mostly they rely on recruiting niave and idealistic students, but because of the Comrade Delta scandal, they are increasingly welcome on campus.

They are loathed not for their despicable attitudes towards sexual violence against women and towards Islamism, but also for their simple-minded slogans, their opposition to freedom of speech and their entryism.

Via their various dubious front organisations - Stop the War Coalition, Union Against Fascism, Counterfire etc - they are quite happy to hijack any cause for their own ends, and to try and claim credit for the results. I think entryists in this case would have to be very careful about getting involved - victims and survivors of this tragedy are likely be be feeling very raw at the moment and won't take kindly to being exploited by Trots.

I do hope there is no social unrest as a result of this tragedy - the emergency services have had enough to cope with these past couple of weeks and we could all do with a period of measured reflection - but if there is I suspect it will be the result of a combination of spontaneous anger and the vacumm left by the PM's and Kensington & Chelsea Council's inaction and incompetence rather than agents provocateur.

The Strat (Fender) posted:

Okay regardless of competence if I had referred to a work colleague in the same manner I would have been dismissed - and rightly so.  

Completely different things. Are you going to dismiss or punish millions of people because they've been less than complimentary about the Dear Leader? Where are we - North Korea?

There has been a long tradition in this country (going back centuries) of abusing our elected officials, it's part of the job and it's a part of democracy.

Christopher_M posted:

A crime in our post Diana field of flowers at Kensington Palace society. We have to emote, and we have to be seen to emote. Private thoughts of empathy or saddness are not enough.

You're exaggerating Chris.

The Queen turned up, and did not emote (she never does) but obviously her dignified presence proved comforting to many. Why couldn't May have turned up sooner and done the same?

Kevin-W posted:

The Strat (Fender) posted:

Okay regardless of competence if I had referred to a work colleague in the same manner I would have been dismissed - and rightly so.  

Completely different things. Are you going to dismiss or punish millions of people because they've been less than complimentary about the Dear Leader? Where are we - North Korea?

There has been a long tradition in this country (going back centuries) of abusing our elected officials, it's part of the job and it's a part of democracy.

There is a difference between deference and courtesy.  The latter in my opinion should be afforded to all 

Kevin-W posted:

I do hope there is no social unrest as a result of this tragedy - the emergency services have had enough to cope with these past couple of weeks and we could all do with a period of measured reflection - but if there is I suspect it will be the result of a combination of spontaneous anger and the vacumm left by the PM's and Kensington & Chelsea Council's inaction and incompetence rather than agents provocateur.

Absolutely agree Kevin & thanks for the insight to SWP,  I am a bit out of that kind of stuff here in rural Oxfordshire.  

I fear is this could easily escalate into something like the riots of 2011 over something (in retrospect) as mundane as the police shooting of a small time crook.  All the conditions are lined up,  huge loss of innocent life, maximum news coverage, dissatisfaction with central & local government, weak leadership & probably made a lot more probable by the fine & dry weather - riots don't happen in mid winter & bad weather.     I have no doubt the police are aware of this & are making the necessary plans;   the problem is if it gets nasty the police will be changed from London Bridge hero's to the Grenfell Tower enemy in a few moments, 

GraemeH posted:

The fundamental problem is the plan of that tower type. One stair that is not separated by a fire enclosure. Firemen and smoke rushing up meeting hundreds rushing down...a disaster waiting to happen. Then they clad it with flammable cladding with a thin air gap all the way up separating it from the existing fabric!

A disgrace in our time.

G

 

One of the 'expert' interviewees I saw on the BBC yesterday said that this type of cladding is banned from use in Germany.  I expect the public enquiry will draw out such issues in due course but, if true, I can see the potential for the issue to bleed across to Brexit e.g. 'taking back control' means driving down still further regulation on H&S, employment rights etc, all to save money?

Mike, from what I can see the policing of this incident so far has been exemplary. Low-key and sympathetic but firm and calm where needed (eg inside Kensington Town Hall yesterday).

As far as I know police intelligence has improved greatly since 2011, so if there are people behind the scenes looking to stir up trouble they will be monitoring them closely and they will be able to act accordingly.

Kevin-W posted:

Mike, from what I can see the policing of this incident so far has been exemplary. Low-key and sympathetic but firm and calm where needed (eg inside Kensington Town Hall yesterday).

As far as I know police intelligence has improved greatly since 2011, so if there are people behind the scenes looking to stir up trouble they will be monitoring them closely and they will be able to act accordingly.

I do very much hope so. If the anger turns into violence and destruction and the authorities deploy the riot squad, it would seriously detract from (a) aiding the victims and (b) finding out who and what is culpable for this disaster.  The cynic in me suspects that there might be some who would welcome such  a detraction.

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

It is about perceptions though. She fails to appear warm, caring or even sympathetic. I don't believe she was not shocked but she just did not appear to be, and now she appears scared and has retired behind the pompous, evasive, cold and arrogant shell that so turned off voters.

.....

He has some responsibilities to respect the due and correct process here and not whip up inappropriate expectations.

Bruce

very balanced post Bruce ... hope TM and JC will read it... its for their and country's good.

enjoy

ken

Kevin-W posted:

Mike-B posted:

  And neither do the SWP & the other 'activists' that have joined with & used this tragedy as a means of furthering their various protests. 

Mike, the SWP are as despised on the left as they are by mainstream politics.

Ever since the rape scandals of earlier this decade, their membership has shrunk to a couple of hundred and they are in constant warfare with other elements of what's amusingly known as the 'sub-atomic left' (tiny parties constanly splitting into even tinier parties due to factionalism). Mostly they rely on recruiting niave and idealistic students, but because of the Comrade Delta scandal, they are increasingly welcome on campus.

They are loathed not for their despicable attitudes towards sexual violence against women and towards Islamism, but also for their simple-minded slogans, their opposition to freedom of speech and their entryism.

Via their various dubious front organisations - Stop the War Coalition, Union Against Fascism, Counterfire etc - they are quite happy to hijack any cause for their own ends, and to try and claim credit for the results. I think entryists in this case would have to be very careful about getting involved - victims and survivors of this tragedy are likely be be feeling very raw at the moment and won't take kindly to being exploited by Trots.

I do hope there is no social unrest as a result of this tragedy - the emergency services have had enough to cope with these past couple of weeks and we could all do with a period of measured reflection - but if there is I suspect it will be the result of a combination of spontaneous anger and the vacumm left by the PM's and Kensington & Chelsea Council's inaction and incompetence rather than agents provocateur.

Kev,

I used to be in the SWP in the mid 1980's only for a year.What you mention rings true with me.I suppose when I was in my early 20' s I was very idialistic and the SWP's aim to smash the capitalist state and people running society I found very appealing as I still respect Marx's interpretation of capitalism.

I used to attend branch meeting's,do paper sales on the high street or on picket lines.Every week we would have a branch social and on a Sunday an educational where you could learn about revolutionary hero's like Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg.My girlfriend lived in a shared house with other branch members and they would call each other comrade.

After a couple of years as much as I admired their ultimate goals I realised that there would never be a revolution and as I had split with my girlfriend  who was also in the party.I decided to leave.Best thing I did and still no working class political consisiousness that I can see.

I thought it was amusing that our party leader a university lecturer who was so radical with his hatred for the state lived in a very middle class area and his house in today's money would sell for £ 2 million......nuff said.

MDS posted:

GraemeH posted:

The fundamental problem is the plan of that tower type. One stair that is not separated by a fire enclosure. Firemen and smoke rushing up meeting hundreds rushing down...a disaster waiting to happen. Then they clad it with flammable cladding with a thin air gap all the way up separating it from the existing fabric!

A disgrace in our time.

G

 

One of the 'expert' interviewees I saw on the BBC yesterday said that this type of cladding is banned from use in Germany.  I expect the public enquiry will draw out such issues in due course but, if true, I can see the potential for the issue to bleed across to Brexit e.g. 'taking back control' means driving down still further regulation on H&S, employment rights etc, all to save money?

are there any  'materials' experts here who may cast light on pros and cons of using this type of cladding material? what sort of tests are conducted before its cleared for deployment? i hear "all regulations were followed" but whenever i hear this, i suspect corners were cut. is it certain that the cheaper cladding that was used still complied? was it something to do with how it was installed? how come fire escape in the building was so defective? do we get to know precisely what the residents were concerned about and brought this to the attention of KCTM?

enjoy

ken

Hi Ian, I was involved with the far Left in my young days for quite a while too. What led to my break with what was then known as the RCP (1978-1997) in 1988/3 was their insistence that Thatcher's response to the Argentinian junta's invasion of the Falkands was a grossly egregious act.

The Argentinian junta was a fascist (genuinely fascist - you could disappear in the middle of the night for voicing dissent) military dictatorship that cynically sought to exploit long-running (if low-level) resentment over the status of the Falkands to shore up its crumbling authority. Unfortunately Thatch was made of sterner stuff and decided to send a task force to ensure the wishes of the Falkland islanders wishes to remain British were respected.

I completely agreed with her (for about the only time). I believe in self-determination, and if a group of people want to be part of a particular nation (or not) then they are entitled to do that. The RCP heirarchy's argument that Thatch was somehow worse than a fascist dictatorship made no sense to me (and I despised Thatcher).

So I left, and have never belonged to a political organisation again, preferring to plough a lonely furrow on the libertarian left...

Mind you, the RCP seemed to hate the WRP, Militant, Labour, the BCP, CPB and the 'bourgeois entryists' of the SWP more than they did Thatcher and the Tories!

ken c posted:

very balanced post Bruce ... hope TM and JC will read it... its for their and country's good.

enjoy

ken

Won't happen Ken. Neither of them would come on this forum, they don't have hi-fis and have no interest in acquiring one.

Jezza's down with da kids and only listens to grime on his mobile, while May cannot decide what she's going to listen to so ends up listening to nothing at all...

Kevin-W posted:

ken c posted:

very balanced post Bruce ... hope TM and JC will read it... its for their and country's good.

enjoy

ken

Won't happen Ken. Neither of them would come on this forum, they don't have hi-fis and have no interest in acquiring one.

Jezza's down with da kids and only listens to grime on his mobile, while May cannot decide what she's going to listen to so ends up listening to nothing at all...

i know you know i meant it in jest Kevin.

but sometimes i wonder how much balance of views our leaders are exposed to as opposed to the starkly polar positions that we see in politics these days. you can see i am a bit disillusioned here --

enjoy

ken

Kevin-W posted:

ken c posted:

very balanced post Bruce ... hope TM and JC will read it... its for their and country's good.

enjoy

ken

Won't happen Ken. Neither of them would come on this forum, they don't have hi-fis and have no interest in acquiring one.

Jezza's down with da kids and only listens to grime on his mobile, while May cannot decide what she's going to listen to so ends up listening to nothing at all...

I can see TM with a Mu-So ( a nice neat solution bought from John Lewis) to play selections from Elgar and Parry.  JC I imagine with a 70s cassette deck playing Diane A's old Buena Vista  Social Club mix tapes.  McDonnell probably views all music as an unwanted distraction from the class struggle.

You have to go to Medvedev for a world leader  with serious HIFi credentials ( including some Naim as I recall)

Kevin-W posted:

 

So I left, and have never belonged to a political organisation again, preferring to plough a lonely furrow on the libertarian left...

Mind you, the RCP seemed to hate the WRP, Militant, Labour, the BCP, CPB and the 'bourgeois entryists' of the SWP more than they did Thatcher and the Tories!

Nicely put.

Even back in my time in the party I noticed alot of disharmony with fellow leftist groups weather it was the RCP or militant.Basically the SWP's thinking was one of idealistic superiority and they shouldn't be associated with these groups.Yet more splits in the common goal.What a waste of time.Pleased I left and like you have never joined a party since ,although always vote labour and admire Corbyn for his political backbone.

Lovely sunny Saturday lunchtime here - sat outside on my patio.

Ian Durys - New Boots and Panties playing on the LP12....... Haven't played it for a good 10 years forgot what a totally brilliant album it is.So lyrically rich and the Blockheads are so tight as a band.

Enjoy your weekend.

Ian

ken c posted:

MDS posted:

GraemeH posted:

The fundamental problem is the plan of that tower type. One stair that is not separated by a fire enclosure. Firemen and smoke rushing up meeting hundreds rushing down...a disaster waiting to happen. Then they clad it with flammable cladding with a thin air gap all the way up separating it from the existing fabric!

A disgrace in our time.

G

 

One of the 'expert' interviewees I saw on the BBC yesterday said that this type of cladding is banned from use in Germany.  I expect the public enquiry will draw out such issues in due course but, if true, I can see the potential for the issue to bleed across to Brexit e.g. 'taking back control' means driving down still further regulation on H&S, employment rights etc, all to save money?

are there any  'materials' experts here who may cast light on pros and cons of using this type of cladding material? what sort of tests are conducted before its cleared for deployment? i hear "all regulations were followed" but whenever i hear this, i suspect corners were cut. is it certain that the cheaper cladding that was used still complied? was it something to do with how it was installed? how come fire escape in the building was so defective? do we get to know precisely what the residents were concerned about and brought this to the attention of KCTM?

enjoy

ken

I don’t know anything about cladding, but yesterday, out of interest I took a look at the cladding section of the consultants specification of an apartment building, I’m preparing costs for.

The only thing specified was it should conform to BS 476-7 Class 1.

http://www.ics-services.co.uk/...ritish-Standards.pdf

The above indicates this applies to surface spread of flame, not fire propagation.

With regards the stairwell, I saw a news item that indicated a stairwell ventilation system had been installed as part of the refurd. The graphic shown, indicated it was actually a stairwell pressurisation system. Basically a couple of large fans on the roof force air into the stairwell, producing a positive pressure relative to the surrounding spaces. This has the effect preventing smoke from fires on the floor plates entering the stairwell.

I’m 99% certain these fans are switched on by the fire officer, if he decides to do so. The fact there is a delay in switching on the fans is probably the reason people were told to stay put. The last thing you want is a couple of hundred people in an unpressurised stairwell, with the possibility it could fill with smoke.

Maybe the fans weren’t in service, weren’t switched on, or faulty. Or the ferocity of the fire simply overwhelmed the system.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, I did here one of the residents claim gas pipes where installed in the stairwell.

Fatcat- excellent insight thank you.  

Two means of escape from fire/smoke protected stairwells mandatory here. Relying on one fire exit and entrance with electrical circuits to operate fans is all very well...in theory.

G

i have now just replayed the TM interview on BBC.  Oh dear!! its very obvious that her focus is to protect herself from any finger pointing that is inevitable after such a horrendous event -- and she is very cold about it. whats wrong with admitting that perhaps she should have met residents when she first visited and that perhaps the reason she didn't was .... (insert one here...) that would have at least made her sound more genuine. as it happens, i was left feeling she is taking this event as one of those where you have to massage and orchestrate your position, rather than come down to the level of the suffering...

enjoy

ken