Grenfall Tower Fire

[magicrat]

I would, political woman really do it for me, I've got a huge crush on that plaid Cymru bird, the Jackanory voiced saucepot.

 

Naked and excitedly whispering Welsh down your ear, Then she produces a large pair of wellies and says make love to me like they do back home. 

[Pureblood]

I'd put my 'X' in her ballot box.

[Dougie Do'ins]

 

http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.de/2017/06/a-firefighter-who-attended-grenfell.html

 

Sunday, 18 June 2017

A firefighter who attended Grenfell tower has written this:

 

[This piece of writing is up on the Facebook 'Save the Fire Service' page and begins with 'Sent to us at STUKFS, powerful and emotional story from a firefighter who attended Grenfell Tower']

STUKFS = Save the UK Fire Service

 

 

 

I'm not sure if this is something that I should vocalise or whether or not it should be shared with the world but as I sit at home thinking about the other night the Grenfell Tower I feel like people might want to know how the incident went from the point of view of a firefighter who was sent inside, while the tower burned all around us and how after years of cuts to the service I work for, how I feel about what we do and how the past few years have been for us.

I bet he wasn't one of the fire fighters May spoke to when she visited the site the next day. According to her when she was answering questions in the commons on Tuesday, 'she asked all the fire fighters if they felt they had have the resources to cope with the incident and they all said yes'.

[The Woolster]

Grew up around those blocks in Camden, my Mum knows people in each of them. Think they put the cladding up 5 or so years ago, thought about them straight away when it became clear it was to do with the cladding. Then I found this article (http://archive.camdennewjournal.com/news/2013/jun/meeting-told-how-mayor-boris%E2%80%99s-proposals-axe-fire-stations-will-threaten-safety-high-r) and one of the blocks actually had a fire up on the 17th floor, but luckily did not have the same effect. Local fire station has been closed since though.

 

Coincidentally, realised that I went to nursery with the journalist who wrote it! And he happens to be the great nephew of Michael Foot, wonder what he would have made of this shit 

[thegreatelephant]

Just put Sky News on here and in the live pictures you can see their reporter in the background harassing people for an interview as they're walking out with their kids.

 

Fucking vultures.

 

don't worry. they'll fuck off like they did last week soon enough. like they did after allowing that black geezer to go out live talking about revolution and calling them all out for the rotten cunts they all are and such like. don't want any more of that sort of unsolicited free speech thank you very much.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/24/government-u-turn-over-fire-safety-controls-for-new-schools

 

Ministers in abrupt U-turn over fire safety in schools

Government goes back to drawing board after deciding that cost-cutting rules ‘would have been a disaster’ in light of Grenfell Tower disaster

 

Controversial government proposals to relax fire safety standards for new school buildings as a cost-cutting measure are to be dropped by ministers in a major policy U-turn following the Grenfell Tower fire.

The move is evidence of a dramatic change of approach across government, from a previous preoccupation with deregulation and cost-saving to a safety-first attitude, in the aftermath of the west London tower block tragedy.

After thousands of people were evacuated amid chaotic scenes from five tower blocks in Camden, London, late on Friday night, Theresa May said the priorities were to find temporary accommodation for those affected and make the buildings safe before people could return.

But the crisis appeared to be spreading on Saturday with the announcement that a total of 27 blocks in 15 council areas in England had been deemed unsafe.

Several councils have begun work on removing cladding from the tower blocks, but there was disquiet among some local authority leaders that the government would push the cost of emergency works, such as sprinkler systems, on to councils.

Jeremy Corbyn described the cladding issue as “a nationwide threat” and said the prime minister needed to “get a grip and lead a national response”.

“I urge the government to make sure all necessary support – including, crucially, financial support – is urgently made available to councils across the country,” he said.

The prime minister said the government was working with councils, including Camden, “making sure that the resources are there to ensure that what is needed to keep people safe is done”.

Across government, ministers have been ordered to look again at fire safety policies in their departments. An urgent rethink has been under way at the Department for Education, which had begun a consultation on official new draft guidance on fire safety in schools last year that was widely seen as a substantial watering down of safety requirements.

Fire safety experts, backed by senior MPs, expressed deep alarm over the past year at the plans and warned ministers repeatedly that they could have disastrous results.

Part of the revised draft guidance – which the Observer has learned will now be dropped – removed the requirement that sprinklers be included in the design of new schools and stated, instead, that “school buildings do not need to be sprinkler protected to achieve a reasonable standard of life safety”. It also said it “no longer includes an expectation that most new school buildings will be fitted with them”.

In a letter to schools minister Nick Gibb last August, London fire commissioner Ron Dobson said such changes could have “potentially devastating consequences”.

Gibb announced the consultation on changes in a parliamentary debate on fire safety the previous October. He said the number of fires in schools had declined and pointed out that “including sprinklers in new school buildings would add between 2% and 6% to the cost of works”.

Gibb, one of the main forces behind the government’s academy and free schools programme, added: “The department’s assessment is that the additional spending would significantly outweigh any relatively modest saving from preventing some damage to school buildings.”

In the same debate, the Tory MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety, David Amess, said it was “crazy” that under the Tory government the proportion of new schools and academies fitted with sprinkler systems had already fallen from 70% (between 2007 and 2010, under Labour) to 35%. “That is unacceptable,” he said.

When the draft guidelines were published, teaching unions and fire safety organisations protested again but formed the impression that ministers were not listening and that the consultation was a sham.

Last week, in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, the revised draft guidance had been removed from the DfE website. Amid signs of panic, officials tried to insist that there had never been any intention to change policy.

The Observer now understands that the proposals in the new draft guidance are to be taken back to the drawing board and that any sections which might be seen as weakening safety requirements – including the new language suggesting sprinklers are unnecessary – will be struck out.

A government source insisted: “What we would like to stress is that what we do will be a strengthening of fire safety requirements, not any weakening of them.” Asked if that meant a rethink on sprinklers in new schools, the source said: “That would be entirely fair.” A DfE spokesman said: “There will be no change to the fire safety laws for schools or our determination to protect children’s safety.”

Last night, Amess said he would welcome a change of approach but added: “We will keep up the pressure until a policy that makes sprinklers mandatory in all new schools is announced. We will also insist that checks are carried out on all existing schools to make sure they are safe.”

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said: “Parents want to know that schools are safe for our children, and there are real questions for the government to answer. It would be completely unacceptable if they have attempted to water down safety requirements simply to make free schools cheaper or let developers make an easier profit.”

The aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire continued to play out on Saturday as the government named six of 15 local authorities where tower blocks have failed safety tests.

Portsmouth, Brent, Camden, Manchester, Plymouth and Hounslow had all sent samples of cladding for testing and were told on Friday that there was a risk they could catch fire.

Camden decided on Friday night to evacuate about 650 households from the Chalcots estate in north London, but many were forced to spend the night in a local leisure centre, prompting anger and complaints from residents.

None of the other councils said yesterday that they would follow Camden’s lead, although Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, said it was a “correct decision”. “Public safety is absolutely paramount, you cannot put a price on people’s lives,” he said.

Many councils have taken emergency measures, including posting 24-hour patrols to keep watch on the affected tower blocks.

With many local authorities, including Sheffield, installing sprinkler systems, there is growing unease among some council leaders that they will end up footing a large part of the bill.

Javid said it was too early to say what the total cost would be. “If [local authorities] also have an issue with financial resources, we have made it very clear: you get on with that work, but you come to government and we will work with you make sure you have the resources that you need, if you don’t have resources.”

Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle Council, said this fell short of a guarantee. “Govt have just confirmed on @BBCBreakfast that, despite all their talk of help, councils will have to pay to install sprinklers in blocks,” he tweeted. He called on the government to lift a cap limiting the amount councils can borrow in relation to housing.

[VladimirIlyich]

Grew up around those blocks in Camden, my Mum knows people in each of them. Think they put the cladding up 5 or so years ago, thought about them straight away when it became clear it was to do with the cladding. Then I found this article (http://archive.camdennewjournal.com/news/2013/jun/meeting-told-how-mayor-boris%E2%80%99s-proposals-axe-fire-stations-will-threaten-safety-high-r) and one of the blocks actually had a fire up on the 17th floor, but luckily did not have the same effect. Local fire station has been closed since though.

 

Coincidentally, realised that I went to nursery with the journalist who wrote it! And he happens to be the great nephew of Michael Foot, wonder what he would have made of this shit 

Tom Foot is also the son of the late journalist Paul Foot(nephew of Michael.)If he's anything like his old man he will be a top performer in his field.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

David Lammy on Twitter, questioning the death toll and saying there are suspicions of a cover up.

 

https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/status/878923495853391872

 

David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 9h9 hours ago

Thread on Grenfell and the death toll (79 is far, far too low) which is fuelling suspicion of a cover up (1/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 9h9 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

Almost 2 weeks on and having spent time with the survivors this week it is difficult to describe the pain people are going through (2/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

Holding out hope for loved ones that they know deep down lost their lives in Grenfell is eating people up inside and breaking them down (3/)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

Trust is at rock bottom in the community. Failure to provide updates of the true number that died is feeding suspicion of a cover-up (4/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

Lack of information about number of victims and survivors is driving a wedge between authorities and those they are elected to serve (5/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

Residents saw dozens of people jumping out of windows to escape the fire. Bodies piled up in stairwells and corridors. (6/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

Survivors cannot believe that the death toll has not risen. Speaking to people on the ground, there is huge suspicion of a cover-up (7/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

With information being withheld for political reasons in an attempt to avoid fuelling anger or unrest. But it is frankly outrageous (8/?)

18 replies293 retweets419 likes

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

That in 2017, for example, mobile phone companies can't work out how many phones were in use in Grenfell Tower on an average night (9/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

To at least get a sense of how many people were there that evening. It is true that there will have been undocumented migrants (10/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

As well as people sub-letting their properties. But there is a huge amount of data that could build a picture of who was in Grenfell (11/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

Including from HMRC, DWP, DVLA and council tax records as well as the electoral register and the TMO's own records (12/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

The fact is that the longer this goes on, the bigger the disconnect between RBKC and the community. There is zero trust right now. (13/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

If the true numbers are withheld, the authorities will never regain the trust of the people and the community. It's that simple. (14/?)

 

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David LammyVerified account@DavidLammy · 8h8 hours ago

Replying to @DavidLammy

So the authorities need to come forward now with whatever information they have to address the suspicion that a cover-up is underway. 15/15.

[littletedwest]

I bet he wasn't one of the fire fighters May spoke to when she visited the site the next day. According to her when she was answering questions in the commons on Tuesday, 'she asked all the fire fighters if they felt they had have the resources to cope with the incident and they all said yes'.

Same in any job that. Our chief executive said at a meeting other week any gripes or issues to email her. If anyone actually did she'd collapse with shock.

[1892-LFCWasBorn]

 

David Lammy on Twitter, questioning the death toll and saying there are suspicions of a cover up.

 

 

He's been the ONLY MP on it. Everyone else is keeping quiet.

 

What the fuck is Sadiq Khan doing as London Mayor?

[magicrat]

He's been the ONLY MP on it. Everyone else is keeping quiet.

 

What the fuck is Sadiq Khan doing as London Mayor?

 

Abbot has been on it,  It beggars belief, the numbers were so obviously understated from the first few hours yet the media say there has been no gagging order,  It might not be a D notice but I have no doubt the government has pulled every string it can to control the information flow

" In the interests of the country not to spark street protests by shocking the public with unsubstantiated death tolls which will hamper our efforts to help the victims."  You could write the script yourself,  I just did !

[Rico1304]

I don't think there's a cover up, in that I've not seen any evidence of it.

 

He's obviously very close to it and doing what he thinks is right to get answers but he may be doing more harm than good. The stuff about the 'average number of phones' is unbelievable.

[1892-LFCWasBorn]

Abbot has been on it,  It beggars belief, the numbers were so obviously understated from the first few hours yet the media say there has been no gagging order,  It might not be a D notice but I have no doubt the government has pulled every string it can to control the information flow

" In the interests of the country not to spark street protests by shocking the public with unsubstantiated death tolls which will hamper our efforts to help the victims."  You could write the script yourself,  I just did !

 

Has she? Not heard from her apart from her saying 100+ deaths yesterday.

 

https://twitter.com/HackneyAbbott

 

Said fuck all on her Twitter account.

[magicrat]

Has she? Not heard from her apart from her saying 100+ deaths yesterday.

 

https://twitter.com/HackneyAbbott

 

Said fuck all on her Twitter account.

 

You probably know more than me then,  I just saw on one of the news channels yesterday she was saying the death toll was higher.

Anyway why is Corbyn not all over this ?  . never mind some bodies never being identified lots of the poor bastards will never have existed if the cunts can get away with it,

[dickie mint]

They're trying to kid the bollocks off the poor people.

[1892-LFCWasBorn]

You probably know more than me then,  I just saw on one of the news channels yesterday she was saying the death toll was higher.

Anyway why is Corbyn not all over this ?  . never mind some bodies never being identified lots of the poor bastards will never have existed if the cunts can get away with it,

 

Fuck knows.

 

Like I said, Lammy is the only MP that has continually been asking the questions since the fire.

 

Putting my cynical hat on for a second, would he be asking these questions if his close friend wasn't killed in the fire given he's the MP for Tottenham?

[magicrat]

Fuck knows.

 

Like I said, Lammy is the only MP that has continually been asking the questions since the fire.

 

Putting my cynical hat on for a second, would he be asking these questions if his close friend wasn't killed in the fire given he's the MP for Tottenham?

 

Possibly not but you can bet your life the victims will be waiting for decades for the truth and justice, Familiar story 

[Denny Crane]

Flammable cladding has been found on 75 high-rise buildings across 26 local authority areas, MPs have been told.

Sajid Javid told the Commons the so-called combustibility test has been failed by every building tested so far in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

The Communities and Local Government Secretary also said that 1,000 fire doors were found missing from the Camden tower blocks evacuated over the weekend

 

http://www.itv.com/news/2017-06-26/more-high-rise-buildings-fail-fire-safety-tests/

 

/

[Denny Crane]

A bit more background.

 

Over the past week, the government has been testing high-rise tower blocks in England owned by councils and housing associations. All 95 of those tested so far have been discovered to be covered with an aluminium "rain-screen" exterior cladding that does not meet the required combustibility standards. You would be right to ask: how on earth can this have happened? The short answer is: the organisations responsible for maintaining standards in the building industry have been advising contractors not to take the regulations too literally. 

 

To understand this, it is worth starting with a document known as Approved Document B. This is the government's own set of fire safety guidance. It stipulates. at section 12.7, "in a building with a storey 18m or more above ground level any insulation product, filler material.... etc used in the external wall construction should be of limited combustibility". That loose-sounding term - "limited combustibility" - actually has a precise definition, set out later in that document. Broadly, though, all you need to know it is hard to set alight. And material meeting this requirement in tests will get a combustibility grade of "A2" or better. That is the standard against which the government has been testing cladding. A government spokesperson said "a test failure means that the cladding does not meet the requirements for limited combustibility in current Building Regulations". 

 

That is to say, a failure means a breach of the official rulebook. Why, then, have builders installed so much sub-A2 cladding Undermining the building regulations The first thing to know is that local officials no longer run all building inspections. England has a so-called "Approved Inspector" regime. Contractors must no longer wait for a local authority official to check their work. Instead, they may hire people to check their construction processes meet the required standards.

 

There is no single regulator - or arm of government - directly upholding standards. Second, the most important requirement in the building regulations is to build a safe building. So long as you do that, the fine print of the rules does not much matter too much. That is why, when inspectors sign off sites, they do not feel the need to work directly from the government's own guidelines. And the guidelines set out by government are rather old, and cannot specify everything in all circumstances. That has left a gap into which esteemed sector bodies have stepped. Their umbrella organisation - the Building Control Alliance (BCA) - has issued advice about how to get a building signed off as compliant without using the type of materials specified in the government guidelines. And it is the case that, in the event of some prosecutions or a civil case, breaching the government's guidance would count as a serious strike against a builder. But it would also be the case that following widely accepted professional practise and BCA guidance would also constitute a defence in a suit for negligence and grounds for mitigation in a criminal prosecution.

 

The problem is that this BCA guidance does not just suggest ways of making new technology fit the old rules. It introduces loopholes. The net effect of the sector bodies' guidance is to set weaker standards than the government's rulebook. Routes to compliance For example, the BCA's guidance in force when the Grenfell renovation took place was issued in July 2014, and it stated that there were several routes to getting a building ready for sign off by an inspector. "Option 1" was just to follow the Approved Document B route: just make sure everything you bolt to the outside of the building is of grade A2 or better. 

 

There were other routes, though, to allow the use of sub-A2 components. Option 2 is to hold a bespoke fire test. So you rig up a wall in a test centre with your proposed cladding design - which might include some sub-A2 components - and try to set it on fire. If it passes the test, you can get certified so that inspectors will sign off this system, even if component parts on their own would not pass. 

 

Option 3 is for a so-called "desktop study". If I have conducted tests of a cladding product in a few different scenarios, then I might not need to bother with a new fire test. I can convince inspectors to sign it off by hiring an expert who will say "based on these results, I am confident that this cladding is safe in this context" without doing any further trials. There are problems with all of this: it has allowed substandard material through. It is a deeply opaque process. We do not know when desktop studies get used. We do not know how many attempts, for example, a product might take to pass a fire test. We do not know who writes these desktop studies. They are not lodged anywhere so that people living in these buildings can go and check on them.

 

A long way below A2 We reported last night, however, on a troubling fourth route. The National House Builders' Council (NHBC) is a big player in building inspection. Last year, they issued guidance which states that you can use a variety of sub-A2 insulation boards with B-grade external cladding - and you can do all of that without even a desktop study. That effectively means that a sector body has unilaterally decided that largely using B-grade material is now sufficient, not A2. NHBC themselves state that "this is on the basis of NHBC having reviewed a significant quantity of data from a range of tests and desktop assessments." NHBC also added that they were confident their own inspectors would have spotted and prevented the use of the plastic-core cladding that was used at Grenfell (with which they were not involved). But they have conceded there is at least one such polyethylene-core cladding product that meets the B-grade standard. The NHBC also believes materials can be used more widely than their own manufacturers do. Take one of the insulation materials that the NHBC mention by name: Celotex RS 5000, the insulation used at Grenfell Tower.

 

According to documents issued by the manufacturer, this board was only tested for use with A2-grade external cladding. The NHBC says it can be used with B-grade cladding, We have also identified one type of insulation that, they say. can be used safely with B-grade cladding, which is actually grade C. All in all, the NHBC guidance takes us a long way from that official A2 standard. Although, as the official cladding tests results keep showing, they are hardly alone. These test failures are a symptom of broader problems with standards in our building sector. There has been a lot of discussion about sprinklers. But the catastrophe at Grenfell Tower has showed up the weakness of the whole framework in which our building regulations sit. The basis on which we decide whether a tower block is fire-safe is a mess. Accepted professional practice has systematically reduced the fire resistance of our tall buildings 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40418266

[Bjornebye]

The new Royal in Liverpool has been built with it apparently.

[magicrat]

Lammy finally getting mainstream coverage about the death toll cover up

 

Can't understand why Corbyn isn't all over this, 

[VladimirIlyich]

Lammy finally getting mainstream coverage about the death toll cover up

 

Can't understand why Corbyn isn't all over this,

I think Corbyn is waiting for some actual evidence and is leaving the knee jerking to others.

[Jairzinho]

Lammy finally getting mainstream coverage about the death toll cover up

 

Can't understand why Corbyn isn't all over this, 

 

Probably because he knows that he's already perceived as a "loony leftie" in some quarters, so is staying well clear of any "mad conspiracies".

[Paulie Dangerously]

100% failure rate in the cladding tests of 95 high rise buildings. It's almost like the financiers knew full well the material they were pumping in was flammable

[Champ]

100% failure rate in the cladding tests of 95 high rise buildings. It's almost like the financiers knew full well the material they were pumping in was flammable

 

It does beg the question who approved the original test requirements