Where did I say that?
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Firstly, most fires can be prevented. Secondly, in the case of fire damage to property, it is customary for the occupants to find temporary accommodation.
What is sad in all of this are the individuals who are trying to make political capital out of a terrible human tragedy. These are real people who have suffered, lost and even died. There is obviously factors that caused the fire and we should all wait until the findings of the fire investigation and independent enquiry are finalised and released before forming opinions.
not at all. I may be wrong, so might a lot of people, but it appears the cladding was not fit for purpose. therefore it is correct to take whatever precautions are necessary and if that means evacuating then that is the right thing to do.
The report isn't going to shine a light on what we don't already know. i.e. the cladding lit up like a roman candle. What the report will hopefully outline is how such cladding ended up being used in the first place. It may well be cost cutting from austerity, it may well be just a poor design in the product, it may be many things, we just do not know yet. For example, were single stairwells a factor, was the cladding a factor, what about the procurement process, the H&S sign off process. There are so many unknowns at this stage
So we shouldn't discuss it and 'make it political', until we know the procurement process?
Please.
that is not what I said. People are using this tragedy as an example of where austerity has a human price to pay. The fact is we just do not know if that is true yet or not. People are angry, I get that - they want answers. A witch hunt isn't the best way to get to the truth so that we ensure such tragedy does not happen again.
I went into Cardiff city housing association waiting list, we used to pay over £700 for rent ( only drove a BMW sports edition plus at the time)
One day we had a phone call to offer us a property of CCHA so we accepted, you have to be working to live in our development but oblivious as a secured tenant if I lose my job I'm entitled to stay for life :)
I'm not denying anyone if a home we even have doctors living where I live
You should see the car park ( 3 stories secured parking) with all those flashy motors I don't think you'd be very happy
I love it where I live thanks for asking
Oh it's only An A class Mercedes amg sports so not to expensive about £16000 at the time I believe
The only downside is concierge is closed on Sundays
To some extent I agree with you. We do not yet know for certain that there is a direct causal link between austerity and the deaths at Grenfell Tower. But this tragedy (along with recent terror attacks and other incidents) has highlighted the general impact of austerity on government policy, public sector service resources, the place of regulation and safeguards, and other critical issues that provide the context for understanding what happened and why.
We do know that the fire service has been cut and now carries out 25% fewer fire safety visits than in 2010, and its capacity to advise and support landlords doing fire risk assessments has been reduced. Despite the amazing response of firefighters to the Grenfell fire we do know that they should have been relieved after 4 hours but many went on to work 13 hours continuously through the night and following morning because there were no relief crews to bring in. We know that some key recommendations from the Lakanal House Inquest in 2013 (delayed by 4 years!) were rejected by government ministers on cost grounds, and that the main one of reviewing the wording and guidance of building regs has not progressed at all. Different priorities! The government's attitude towards regulation and deregulation has come into sharp focus - and even if some don't want to label the 'bonfire of regulations' as political (it is) the government itself seems to be backtracking in the face of Grenfell Tower.
Most of these issues are about the values and priorities of central government (with an echo in local government). There are still many questions to answer (mainly around procurement and control of work done to the block - including any older work that breached fire stops) but this tragedy has been political from the start. Many local residents saw their treatment by the TMO and council as political the day after - and at its basics as a system that favoured huge reserves and council tax refunds to wealthier residents (and the Tory government was not shy to brag about that either) over the safety of poorer tenants in the borough (as documented over 18 months by the Action Group blogs).
On top of that you have the stark contrast in style and leadership of Corbyn compared to May and Camden compared to Kensington and Chelsea. That isn't a party political point - there are plenty of empathetic Tories and plenty of uninspiring Labour councils - but it does put leadership and personal qualities right at the heart of the national response to this awful event. It is clearly political in that Theresa May's standing and credibility has been further damaged, and the reverse for Corbyn.
How on earth are the three recent terrorist attacks due to austerity ?
That's one giant leap of association.
Austerity 'may' have contributed to the fire.
Other contributory factors are that the firefighters thought initially they had put the fire out and left. Is that Teresa May's fault?
Police (and ? Firefighters had advised those in upper floors to stay in their flats. The advice may have been sound if it weren't for the cladding, which police wouldn't have known about.
There were no fire alarms or sprinkler systems ( not that the latter would have helped much in such a terrible inferno).
If Labour had been in power do you think it wouldn't have happened?
It's a ridiculously tragic accident in which serious lessons are being learned.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing !
As I said, Eric the Half Brain.
Where there's social housing in the area then that's where all, the majority or as many as possible should be re-homed.
Where there is no available social housing in that area, then unfortunately the only options are hotels, hostels in the originating council borough or social housing as close to the originating council.
What other options can you come up with ?
Except that the endowment policies that didn't meet the final lump sum requirement were relatively new, based on the stock exchange, where the borrowers purchased units on the assumption that their value would always go up. Many bought there in the late 80's and early 90's and found the stock market, and their units, didn't live up to expectations. The proper endowments were "With Profits" where the cover of the loan was guaranteed from day one until the end of the policy so there was no fear of under funding and with profits it was not uncommon to see the maturing policy pay off your initial loan and leave you with a lump sum, sometimes as much as an additional 70%. These were sold by mutual companies where every policy holder had a stake in the company, such as Sun Life of Canada who eventually abandoned he UK market because of excessive bureaucracy.
Ward: Where does it come from, all this hatred?
Anderson: You know, when I was a little boy, there was an old Negro farmer lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was, uh, - well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my Daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town. Now, my Daddy hated that mule, 'cause his friends were always kiddin' him about oh, they saw Monroe out plowin' with his new mule, and Monroe was gonna rent another field now they had a mule. And one morning that mule just showed up dead. They poisoned the water. And after that there was never any mention about that mule around my Daddy. It just never came up. So one time, we were drivin' down the road and we passed Monroe's place and we saw it was empty. He'd just packed up and left, I guess. Gone up North, or somethin'. I looked over at my Daddy's face - and I knew he'd done it. And he saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and he said: 'If you ain't better than a ******, son, who are you better than?'...He was an old man just so full of hate that he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killin' him.